Stubs - Samaritan

Samaritan (2022) starring Sylvester Stallone, Javon "Wanna" Walton, Pilou Asbæk, Dascha Polanco, Moisés Arias. Directed by Julius Avery. Screenplay by Bragi F. Schut. Based on Samaritan by Bragi Schut, Marc Olivent, Renzo Podesta. Produced by Sylvester Stallone, Braden Aftergood. Run time: 101 minutes. Color. USA. Superhero

A spec script that no one wanted at the time, Samaritan, was turned into a comic book of the same name by its writer, Bragi Schut, at Mythos Comics, an indie publisher he started with Lewis Fenton. After putting out two issues, the story became known to Sylvester Stallone, of Rocky fame, who was looking for a project for an older actor. The original script was then acquired by MGM, in 2019, but as a result, the story became owned by them and by Stallone, and the comic book had to be shuttered after only two issues.

The production was co-produced by Stallone’s Balboa Productions, and began in Atlanta on February 26, 2020, only to be shut down on March 14 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It wouldn’t begin again until October 8, 2020. With a push back in production, the release date also had to be pushed back from November 20, 2020 to August 26, 2022. By then MGM had been purchased by Amazon. The release, which had been planned for theaters, ended up on Amazon’s Prime Video.

Granite City, a major city, had been the home to superhuman twin brothers, who when they grew up became known as Samaritan and Nemesis. As youths, their home was burned down by frightened citizens and while the twins survived, their parents were killed.

Samaritan grew up to become a superhero, whereas Nemesis became a supervillain. Evenly matched, Nemesis crafts a sledgehammer that he hopes will give him an edge over the heroic Samaritan. During a confrontation at the city's power plant, both were apparently killed as the plant exploded, blacking out the city.

Twenty-five years later, thirteen-year-old Sam Cleary (Javon 'Wanna' Walton) worships Samaritan. He tries his best to help his mother, Tiffany Cleary (Dascha Polanco), with their financial crisis and, after being threatened with eviction, he accepts a job from a gang headed by Reza (Moisés Arias). He’s supposed to distract the owner of a bodega while the others steal lottery tickets.

Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk) and Reza (Moisés Arias).

The plan goes awry and the boxes are not lottery tickets, but individual bags of snacks. Reza tries to blame Sam, but the real gang leader, Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), is impressed by Sam.

Joe Smith (Sylvester Stallone) takes care of Sam's attackers.

Later, Reza and his friends attack Sam as payback, but are stopped by Joe Smith (Sylvester Stallone), a garbage collector, who lives across from Sam and enjoys refurbishing items he comes across at work. Joe displays super strength in fighting off the gang members, and Sam suspects that he is Samaritan.

Sam Cleary (Javon 'Wanna' Walton) is convinced Joe is Samartian.

He takes a knife that was used in the attack, that Joe had crushed, to Albert Casier (Martin Starr), an author who has written books on Samaritan and runs a bookstore. However, Albert is not convinced that that’s enough evidence to point to Joe as Samaritan.

Sam's mother (Dascha Polanco) convinces Joe not to call the police on her son.

Trying to find more evidence, Sam breaks into Joe’s apartment and steals a scrapbook dedicated to Samaritan that he finds hidden in a closet. When Joe finds it missing, and loose clippings on the floor, he knows it’s Sam and goes to his apartment. Tiffany makes sure Sam gives it back and pleads with Joe not to call the police.

Meanwhile, Cyrus locates Nemesis's hammer at a police station and sets himself up as the new Nemesis, sparking chaos throughout the city as he leads dissatisfied citizens as they loot local stores.

After Sam confronts him, Joe denies that he is Samaritan, but Reza, still looking for revenge, has Samaritan hit with a car. Joe is badly injured, but heals before Sam's eyes. Joe and Sam build a friendship, while at the same time, Cyrus invites Sam to work with his gang. However, Sam is disturbed when he witnesses them interrogating an unarmed policeman and then shoot him in the back after releasing him.

When Joe saves a young girl from an explosion caused by the gang, the media claims that Samaritan is back, threatening Cyrus' plans. Reza recognizes Joe as being the same person he "killed" with the car and thus confirms his identity and connection to Sam.

Much to Sam’s chagrin, he finds Joe packing a suitcase rather than staying to fight.

Cyrus leads his gang to look for Joe. However, when they arrive, they find Joe's apartment empty. Hoping to lure Joe out, they kidnap Sam and his mother.

During the climatic scene, Joe reveals he's not who Sam thinks he is.

Joe decides not to run and breaks into the gang’s hideout, using a stolen trash truck, and decimates their number before being confronted by Cyrus, now dressed as Nemesis and wielding the hammer. As they fight, with Cyrus calling himself Nemesis, and Joe "the good guy", Joe reveals that Samaritan did die during the power plant fire, and he is actually Nemesis, who survived but left his villainous life behind. Destroying the hammer, Joe kills Cyrus and then rescues Sam.

Hearing the approaching police sirens, Joe tells Sam that there is good and evil in all people and that Sam has to make the right decisions going forward. As the police arrest Reza and the remaining members of Cyrus' gang, Joe leaves.

When the press sees Sam, he tells them that "Samaritan" survived and saved him. Looking into the crowd, Sam sees Joe.

Samaritan is obviously a star vehicle for Sylvester Stallone.

Following its release on Prime Video, the film received less than glowing reviews. The tagline from The Hollywood Reporter, seems to sum it up, “Will do in a superhero pinch.” This is obviously Stallone’s film and after seeing it, it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the role. His screen persona is a mix of tough guy roles, some good, some bad and some hard to tell characters along the way. The duality of his film career seems to fit the character of Joe.

None of the other actors really stand out, though Walton is good as Sam. Most of the characters are just one-dimensional. The villain, played by Pilou Asbæk, is forceful, but we’re not sure what drives him. Being bad isn’t enough for a character. Besides wanting to bring Granite City to its knees, what is his end game?

However, reviewers like Benjamin Lee, writing for The Guardian, criticized the film, “Stallone recycles the grizzled former fighter shtick from both Creed films but with far less of a dimension here, not a fault of his own exactly but one shared with Schut, whose puddle-shallow script doesn’t give him any real grit or gristle.”

I’ll agree there is no background given to Samaritan and Nemesis beyond a thumbnail sketch. As an example, you’d have to imagine that the twins were given real names at birth, rather than just being called superhero/villain names all their lives. I know that it’s not popular these days to give origin stories, but since these are new characters, I think a little bit more might have been called for here.

You do get the feeling that you’ve seen this movie or parts of it before. The dystopian setting is nothing new and the same is true with superheroes. In this case, it’s the plot twist that makes it interesting, though that’s saved until the very end of the story. It might have been more effective if it had come out sooner, which would make Joe’s heroism at the end perhaps mean more. Instead, it’s kind of buried. It's hard to know how the twist would have played out in the comics because they had to stop making them before it could be revealed.

All that said, this is not a bad movie or a disappointment, but you do get the feeling that it could have been better. I’m not sure how successful this would have been as theatrical release, but Samaritan is enough of a different take on superheroes that makes it interesting and worth a view.