Samaritan Review: Choice Is the Greatest Superpower! The Film with Sylvester Stallone On Prime Video
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Javon Walton, Martin Starr, Dascha Polanco
Director: Julius Avery
Streaming Platform: Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Samaritan is a movie and there is no rain on this without a doubt an audiovisual product. A superhero-drama feature film directed by Julius Avery and written by Bragi F. Schut. Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Balboa Productions, it is the big screen adaptation of the comic of the same name. And so far, here we are. Samaritan the film with Sylvester Stallone is available from August 26 on Prime Video. Its release has been moved and changed on several occasions. It was originally scheduled for a theatrical release almost two years ago, in November 2020. We’re not sure sending it to theaters would have been a wise choice. Will it conquer the Prime Video Top Ten? We know as much as you do.
From the director who in the past years gave us cinematic gems such as Son of a Gun, the hilarious and violent Overlord and who is currently at the helm of The Pope’s Exorcist with Russell Crowe, Samaritan presents himself to the vast audience of his spectators as a curious combination of reflection on the figure of the superhero in contemporary cinema and on the art of aging (well). In our review of Samaritan, we will focus on these two interpretations, trying to analyze how Avery and the screenwriter of this Prime Video fine comic have buried under a layer of predictable superhero film a dispassionate homage to the legend figure of Sylvester Stallone.
Samaritan Review: The Story Plot
The fictional city of Granite City is not doing well. In the most degraded suburbs, after almost 25 years, the fury of the clash between the two superheroes who had made the metropolis great still echoes: Samaritan and Nemesis, two brothers whose showdown left deep scars on the citizens of Granite City; after the mysterious death of the heroes, two factions seem to have been created: those who claim that Samaritan is still alive and well and those who instead honor the memory of the evil Nemesis by carrying out raids and criminal acts in his name. A teenager named Sam Cleary (Javon “Wanna” Walton) becomes convinced that his neighbor, taciturn garbage man Joe Smith (Sylvester Stallone), is Samaritan in disguise.
Little Sam’s thesis will attract the attention of the criminal gangs that pillage and terrorize the outskirts of Granite City, led by the menacing Cyrus (the Pilou Asbaek from Game of Thrones). When the teenager’s life appears to be in grave danger, Elder Joe Smith will have to come out and get involved one last time; but not before revealing to the boy a dangerous secret related to his past as a superhero. The story of Samaritan starts from these simple instances, a film that manages to balance the average cinecomic superstrate and the much denser substrate of examination of the cinematographic genre and on the superstar protagonist of Avery’s work with rough effectiveness.
Samaritan Review and Analysis
Let’s clarify one thing immediately: Samaritan does not pretend to want to revolutionize the genre of post-modern cinecomics, nor to want to overturn it from head to toe with wit. Indeed, to be honest, the director Julius Avery and the screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (also co-author of the Mythos Comics comic series inspired by the events of the film) build a film with a predictable trend, which leaves little room for imagination or surprises; until, however, the rough Joe Smith of “Sly” Stallone does not reveal his true identity, reversing the dynamics of the characters involved and the ambitions of the film itself.
We will certainly not reveal the nature of the plot twist concerning the protagonist, yet this courageous artistic choice is enough for us to re-evaluate even the showiest coarseness of Avery’s film. If it is true that this small Amazon-branded cinecomic feeds on clichés of its kind, it draws more strength when, with a nice thought-out narrative twist, it gets rid of them as if they were damaged goods. After all, it is the same film that seems to want to shout to its audience that “there are no longer the superheroes of the past”.
And to differentiate the heroes who still populate with extraordinary success in today’s cinema and TV audiences from those of Samaritan, just look with affection and a little tenderness at his absolute protagonist, Sylvester Stallone who at the venerable age of 76 still knows how to donate spirit and energetic fluid to the illustrious ghosts of his past, on all the epochal Rocky Balboa and John Rambo. Just as a few years ago he resumed the ranks of these characters by taking on their shoes again with painful and tender enthusiasm, here too Stallone gets back into the game by bringing an elderly and reluctant superhero to the small screen for the first time in his career.
An act of courage that comes from a free artistic choice rather than from a purely professional necessity. For this reason, the game of reflexes between the actor Stallone and the character-Joe Smith here seems more fitting than ever; the latter, torn apart by a painful past and a secret that could endanger the people closest to him, will give the young ally Sam Cleary the most precious gift of all: that of choice, of the intrinsic value of free, will even before of a Manichean vision of a world divided between simple good and predictable bad guys. In between, as in life, there is experience.
But the reflection that brings Avery’s Samaritan into play does not stop here. In addition to building with intelligence and respect a character that reflects and celebrates Stallone’s talents in front of the camera and his career, the cinecomic knows how to find his purest heart when it goes beyond and goes beyond that Manichean conception of good and bad gangrenous in most of the comic stories we grew up with; Fortunately, Avery’s film builds on lessons learned on the subject from more recent older brothers, such as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Eric Kripke’s cheeky TV series The Boys. Models, those mentioned above, have taught us how it is possible to build gray humanity with masks and cloaks beyond the rigid boundaries of good and evil; you just need to know how to make a free choice to understand what is right or wrong. A lesson that Samaritan has learned in a surprisingly effective way and far from any pandering.
Samaritan Review: The Last Words
In Samaritan, Julias Avery signs a cinecomic with an all too predictable and saturated trend in the contemporary cinema scene, but the reflection on the weight of old age and the homage felt to the career in front of the camera by Sylvester Stallone makes it a crepuscular and enjoyable product at the same time. If we take all this and shake it, transforming it who knows how into a 1 hour 20 cartoon, the result is interesting and maybe even working. Unfortunately, we don’t have a magic shaker for on-screen entertainment products, and unfortunately, this remains a banal, outdated, outdated, cumbersome and creaky film. If we had seen him at the cinema, we would have regretted the ticket money. A treat to sweeten your mouth: Moisés Arias, the actor who plays the head of the gang with two-tone braids, is none other than Rico, by Hannah Montana. Did you recognize him?
