Samaritan (Prime Video) 2022

Sylvester Stallone as a retired Superhero. This is a premise that I could definitely get behind, and the premise of 2022’s SAMARITAN. 

 SAMARITAN shows us a post superhero world. In the beginning there were a pair of twins born with strength, durability and regenerative capabilities far beyond normal humans. When their parents died in an arson attack, one of them vowed vengeance against humanity, taking up the villainous moniker of Nemesis. 

The other brother became the superhero Samaritan to defend humanity against Nemesis and inspire people with hope. Eventually both superhuman brothers died in a massive power plant explosion.

 In present day 25 years later, their home of Granite City is a decaying urban wasteland with a widening rich/poor divide and people who have given up all hope. Our story follows a boy named Sam who is obsessed with Samaritan and buys into the conspiracy theory that the superhero never died. 

After being saved from gangsters by an elderly neighbour named Joe Smith, Sam is convinced that Joe is Samaritan, now retired and in hiding over the guilt of killing his brother Nemesis. As Sam tries to convince Joe to return to crime fighting, a crime boss named Cyrus has uncovered Nemesis’ old gear and weapons. 

Christening himself the new Nemesis, Cyrus’s gang spreads anarchy with a massive crime wave and Sam soon finds himself embroiled in the chaos, forcing Joe to use his powers once again. 

 For me I loved this movie. It taps into that late 2000s “suitless superhero” movie vibe of Unbreakable, Jumper, Push and Chronicle. The setting deliberately evokes the dystopia of the old Robocop movies, along with a number of plot beats.

 Cyrus himself is played by Ghost In the Shell’s Pilou Asbaek and he steals the show for his increasingly unstable villain performance. Sam, played by Javon Walton, is easily one of the less cringey kid protagonists I’ve seen in movies and he carries this movies more emotionally scenes very well. 

 Stallone though is massively underplayed as Joe. He doesn’t get much opportunity to act other than scowling or growling. The only concession being the scenes where his anger gets the better of him before he cuts loose against whichever unfortunate baddie gets in his way. 

 There are a lot of underlying themes going for SAMARITAN. The disparity between the myth built around a hero and the actual hero as a person, the folly of a society’s over dependence on someone else to fix problems rather than fixing it themselves, a pivotal twist that deconstructs the typical supervillain motives. Unfortunately it does not devote much time to those, preferring to focus on the interpersonal relationship between Sam and Joe  

Nitpicks aside, this is a great movie for me. It takes its premise seriously, is a simple enough tale of redemption, has some decent grounded action, and some nice plot twists. I would have gladly watched this on the big screen but thanks to Covid it went straight to Amazon Prime streaming. Highly recommended