Where i Watched it: Amazon

Description Provided By: Deluxe

Narrated By: William michael Redmond

in the grand tradition of superhero movies, Sylvester Stallone is finally taking his stab at this genre. His long awaited attempt at a… oh, you mean he’s already done a comic book film before? Oh, he’s done multiple? Well then. I guess he’s addicted to being a hero.

Samaritan feels very 90’s, in the way that we used to have these films where a major star would team up with a kid, but ultimately the forward motion of the film was provided mostly by the kid, with the eventual need for the adult A-lister to swoop in at the end and save a life. Samaritan is what Stallone would have made as competition to Schwarzenegger had Last Action Hero been a hit.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a fun time to be had. Considering how the box office is in the doldrums, it is hard to not think that Amazon left money on the table by choosing to only stream this. Sure, Stallone is getting up there in age, but he’s very much a supporting actor here. The film sets up a rivalry between hero and villain, before throwing us into a dystopian reality where cops are on strike, and our main kid has a mom that I didn’t even realize was his mom until she said it out loud. I thought he was being raised by a sister, or had been captured by incompetence.

There’s a solid job done here to make this look as bleak as possible, as even our protagonist has to make some sketchy life choices to survive, and can’t claim he’s clean himself. But in the background, Samaritan notices that he’s as close to a good guy as you can get these days, and when someone is looking to be a new super villain, I guess an old guy teaming up with a kid is the way to go.

Or at least, for this film it is. Stallone may be old, but he’s still very aware of what works, and what doesn’t (despite some career choices that suggest otherwise). But even when you analyze something like Judge Dredd, that worked on paper, it just was poorly executed.

Samaritan is a film featuring a hero no one asked for, nor did anyone want. however, maybe it’s the hero we needed. Following other films this year like Secret Headquarters that created a superhero out of nothing, it reminds us that you don’t have to come from the House of Marvel or the House Of DC to Pose. Pray Tell would have nailed that reference better than I.

It’s not perfect, but I had just enough fun with it to give me hope that I’ll remember this film 10 years from now. As far as the audio description goes, I’ve long said that putting William michael Redmond as a narrator on an action or horror film actually has the ability to make a film better. he has “that voice” that matches what he’s saying, and reads his narration with proper intensity for the product at hand. So, maybe that’s why I liked Samaritan a bit more than the other guy.

Watch it. Not everything that goes to streaming is total garbage. Some of it helps pass time.

Final Grade: B