Review of Samson (2018) by Filipeneto — 13 Sep 2020

As I have already had the opportunity to say, the Bible is an excellent source of good stories, regardless of our faith or religious beliefs. Cinema has always enjoyed biblical stories and this has already resulted in a series of films so good that they have become part of our collective cultural memory. However, a few years ago the fashion for remaking many of these films emerged. This is another remake and, to be honest, the biggest difference between both films is how they approach the story told and the names of some characters.

The story told does not need great presentations, even those who have never read the Bible have heard of it: a thousand years before the birth of Jesus, Jews were enslaved by the Philistines and their last great hope of liberation lay in the herculean strength of Samson, the which he was appointed at birth as leader of the Jewish people. But Samson seems reluctant to accept his fate and is delighted by Taren, a Philistine. The marriage is disrupted by Rallah, the ruthless and cruel heir to the Philistine throne, Samson's fierce enemy, who will pursue his entire family and use his lover, Delilah, to seduce and to steal him of his strength.

If the 1949 "Samson and Delilah" addresses the classic biblical story from the point of view of a tragic novel, where the crossed loves between the characters are central to the plot, this film focuses much more on the action. The loving relationships are just another reason for the two antagonists - Samson and Rallah - to hate each other more and more. If this resource seemed smart on the one hand, making the two films different, distinct approaches to the same story, on the other hand it made the character Delilah much more secondary than we are used to. It is a more masculine film and the central characters of the plot are masculine (Samson, Rallah, King Balek). Delilah is virtually thrown to the periphery of the cast until the last half hour of length and never has the development she should have. Another thing much more visible in this film is the cultural and religious difference between Jews and Philistines, and the way in which religious issue made them incompatible.

The film's cast is led by Taylor James, who appears to have been selected based on the size of his biceps and not his ability to embody the character. During the action scenes he is truly monstrous and looks like an iron colossus. In the rest he never goes beyond the average and sometimes it sounds artificial and cliché. Jackson Rathbone succeeded in the task of looking sufficiently psychopathic and crazy, but that was the only thing he did correctly. Frances Sholto-Douglas was fine, but at times she seems to behave and speak in an too anachronistic way, like a teenager of our time. Caitlin Leahy was very unlucky with the material received and gave us an incoherent and cliché Delilah. Better were Rutger Hauer and Billy Zane, but their characters did not have enough weight and time for the actors to show much more.

From a technical point of view, it is an equally forgettable film. In fact, I don't even know if it was designed for the big screen... I don't think so. Everything in this film breathes television and I feel that it would be much worse than it is if it were shown in a theater. Or maybe this is due to the limited budget available for production... I don't know. The film has considerable doses of average CGI, which never looks real but works well enough to do what it has to do. Cinematography is regular and does not deviate from industry standards. The sets and costumes are quite interesting, and I felt that there was a genuine effort to give the film a more realistic look, stripped of epic artifice. It is to be commended and it worked, albeit with some flaws. The soundtrack works, but it seems clearly made for a TV movie and not for the cinema. The best in the entire film are the action scenes (especially the battle in which Samson uses a bone as a weapon) and the final scenes, in the pagan temple.