Review by Jon Donnis
Since I first saw the trailer for Sylvester Stallone's newest film Samaritan, I have been looking forward to watching the whole film.
The story revolves around a young boy who comes to the realization that a famed superhero, who was thought to have gone missing after an epic battle twenty-five years ago, may in fact still be around.
Sounds pretty good, but is it?
The film starts off with the narration of an animated retelling of the story of Samaritan, and how his brother Nemesis used innocent people as a way to get Samaritan to come fight him. There is a blast and both Samaritan and Nemesis die.
Back in modern times, and we follow young Sam Cleary (played by Javon Walton), a 13-year-old student, trying to help his mom survive through a financial crisis. Of course, this leads him accepting money from gang members, to distract a shop keeper while they steal scratch cards. Unfortunately, the gang do not bother to check the boxes they steal and instead steal packets of crisps.
When they realise, they get into an argument and Sam gets involved, and punches one of the gang members, embarrassing him in front of the boss.
The gang box Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk) rewards Sam for his hard work, but also gives him money for work he has yet to do.
After Sam leaves, the gang follow him, and want revenge for him embarrassing one of them, they jump him and start beating him, suddenly an older man, Joe (Sylvester Stallone) comes along, and easily beats up the gang, saving Sam.
Sam starts to believe this man is the Superhero Samaritan. Since Joe lives across the road from where Sam lives, Sam starts to spy on him, looking for evidence.
What follows is a film about an aging Superhero, reluctant to not only reveal he is alive, but reluctant to get back into the Superhero business.
Javon Walton is the star of the film in many ways, he gets the most screentime, and he is the character we are most interested in supporting. This may not necessarily be a bad thing, but personally I kind of expected this to be much more centered around Sylvester Stallone and the Samaritan character. So, I think some people might be disappointed in that.
We also learn later in the film that everything that went down in the past in the original fight between Nemesis and Samaritan might not have been accurate, and we soon learn the true story. And with that we do get some hilarious CGI of a young Stallone.
The Good
This is a decent film, at 95 minutes it is about the right length, and as Stallone gets older, it is nice to see him still be able to pull off the tough guy role.
The Bad
CGI is hilariously bad, and those wanting more of a Stallone centric film might be disappointed.
Overall
I enjoyed Samaritan, the story was good, the fight scenes were decent, and the end was satisfying.
I score Samaritan a fair 7/10
Out now on Amazon Prime. - https://amzn.to/3KlM2EB
