Samaritan review: An unbreakable superhero premise with a broken execution

Sylvester Stallone, who has been spending much of his ten years saying good-bye to many of his iconic characters, passed the torch from Rocky Balboa onto the next generation. CreedJohn Rambo riding off into sunset. Rambo: The Last Blood. At the same time, he doesn’t seem entirely satisfied with that potential finality: He brought Rocky back for Creed IIRambo had vowed that he would fight in the end Last Blood. Amazon Video’s aging-superhero movie Samaritan feels a bit like an “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” gambit, made to continue the trend. Stallone’s classic stories are ending, and he now has another one. A Stallone-y, weathered version of a superhero on the late stage in what feels like his final act.

It’s a bigger, more tailored role than Stallone’s recent smaller parts in 2021’s Suicide SquadAnd Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 for superhero-team specialist James Gunn. It’s probably unfair to wonder what Gunn might have done with Samaritan, but it’s hard not to wonder, because the movie is such a dispiriting mishmash of good ideas, theft from better movies, and clumsy filmmaking.

This premise is simple and appealing, as illustrated in an illustrated prelogue. Granite City used to be home to two brothers, Samaritan (sigh), and Nemesis (sigh). Samaritan saved people around the city, while his brother apparently chose “Nemesis” as his nom de supervillain. Although their conflict ended in violence, Samaritan has left behind many loyal, hopeful fans, like Sam (Javon Waltons). Sam has noticed that “Joe Smith” (Stallone), a loner who lives in the apartment building across the way, seems suspiciously strong and resilient for an older man. When Joe fights off some local bullies, Sam starts to wonder: Could this be the superhero he’s been looking for?

Sylvester Stallone in Samaritan flings off a bunch of bullies, who are flying through the air

At minimum Samaritan The cribs are not part of the Marvel/DC Playbook. It was taken from an original screenplay, which was then converted to obscure comic books on the way to screen. I am reminded of the quiet and indestructible man played by Planet Hollywood backinger, wearing a workaday jacket. Unbreakable and their working-class interpretation of superhero mythos. Granite City has more to do with the industrial decay of comics movies such as Crow — though it’s equally indebted to local-news scaremongering that depicts any and all cities as cesspools of crime, on the brink of total anarchy. Its baddies are portrayed as the Beast with tattoos and ostentatious haircuts.

Only a few seconds in Samaritan that do recall more recent superhero movies are still a bit offbeat: Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), the younger maniac who wants to claim the mantle of Nemesis for himself, sports both a philosophy and a coat that recall the Dark Knight RisesBane version. It’s clear early on, however, that these bits and pieces aren’t coming together. Julius Avery, director of the film, assembles them using some incredibly baffling editing decisions that leave multiple scenes with no breathing space.

Samaritan’s transitions are especially jarring, assembled with muddy writing. The movie’s superpower is the ability to inspire a litany of distracting questions in almost any scene, no matter how simple. Try to follow along with this example: For reasons not fully explained, Cyrus is willing to employ the tweenage Sam in his criminal enterprise, and Sam is willing to give it a try, in spite of his devotion to Samaritan’s do-gooder legend. Cyrus trains Sam quickly to become a lookout in one scene. Sam should whistle if they see a cop near their hideout. However, Sam had just shown that he can’t whistle. Cyrus paid for a patrolling officer and Granite City is not crawling with dedicated policemen.

Avery cuts to an overhead shot. This signals to the audience that Avery is going to transition to another location or to an action that requires a larger view. Then he cuts to the interior of the hideout, as more bad guys arrive — followed by Sam, who sneaks in after them and secretly watches with inexplicable horror as they do bad stuff. On top of the narrative confusion, the tenuous, distant spatial relationship between Sam’s original post and the interior of the hideout makes it seem nearly impossible for anyone to hear him whistling a warning, even if he could.

Is Sam genuinely conflicted between taking up a life of crime and doing the right thing, mirroring the way Granite City’s citizens are divided between Samaritan and Nemesis? He accepted this spy job in order to learn more about the evil guys. These are just a few of the many basic questions in the film, which leave no answers. The script is too busy hastily introducing characters — like a fringe writer/bookseller played by a droll Martin Starr — and then forgetting they exist.

Pilou Asbæk faces down Sylvester Stallone in Samaritan

Stallone is supposed to serve as the movie-star anchor here, and watching him apply his late-period-Rocky weariness to a gruff superhuman provides the movie’s only sustained interest. The filmmakers do seem to understand that the basic formula of “reluctant hero Stallone plus scrappy fanboy kid” is a durable one. (“Joe” even gives Sam some fighting lessons, in case the movie wasn’t already enough like a Rocky series extension.) The series also has one great plot. However, the film is poorly staged and fails to reveal the essential hero/kid bonding elements. The story also gives away the ending.

Worse, SamaritanIt takes away the enjoyment from a concept that could be compelling to lovers of the star’s stubborn and persuasive personality or fans of Unbreakable’s look and tone. In this movie, the charm of Stallone’s lunkhead philosophizing curdles into a stern, vague lecture about making good choices. (It’s like a libertarian spin on Spider-Man’s central lesson: “Great power comes strictly and exclusively with personal responsibility.”)

Stallone needs to be skilled at portraying a powerful man who is in quiet semiretirement. That’s basically the premise of those later Rocky and Rambo installments. But alongside the incompetent filmmaking here, he’s done in by the conviction that it’s not yet time for him to pack it in, or even move on to the character-actor roles that he could really crush. An elegy instead of a celebration for his past invincibility SamaritanIt is absurdly fake and a cartoony attempt at a brand new beginning.

Samaritan Amazon begins streaming videos on August 26,