Review of The Samaritan (2012) by Shawn W — 09 Sep 2014
When not even great screen presences Samuel L. Jackson or Tom Wilkinson can elevate a film, you know you've got a bad one. It doesn't help that neither of them seem to care at all about the film they find themselves in, and neither of them could be bothered to try.
The fact that Jackson, in all his lethargy, is still the best thing about this film tells you the lows this film sinks to. Jackson played Foley, who's out of prison on parole after twenty-five years.
He's trying to go straight, but the son of his ex-partner forces him back into the job for one last grift. The first problem is the Samaritan is that it's premise is one we've heard several times before.
The second is that it has a terrible screenplay that cannot transcend it's numerous cliches. The dialogue is uninspired and uninteresting, meanwhile the characters are undeveloped and terribly acted.
The third problem is that it's stylistically and tonally uneven; at times it seems like the director can't decide which film he's actually directing. The worst part about the Samaritan is that it manages to be both tedious and unpleasant at the same time.
The film takes itself dead-seriously, and somber attitude and attempts to shock the audience becomes very irritating. The Samaritan is a film that thinks it's cool, thinks it's clever, thinks it's edgy and provocative, but in the end it's just very, very stupid, very, very boring, and very, very unpleasant.
This review of The Samaritan (2012) was written by Shawn W on 09 Sep 2014.
The Samaritan has generally received mixed reviews.
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