Samaritan: Not worth saving

Samaritan (2022) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for strong violence and profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

Well … at least this Sylvester Stallone project is age-appropriate.

 

Director Julius Avery’s fitfully entertaining urban drama is an inner-city spin on the superhero genre, although Bragi F. Schut’s script is far better suited to the graphic novel format that preceded this film by almost a decade. 

 

To the exasperated frustration of Joe (Sylvester Stallone, right), young Sam
(Javon "Wanna" Walton, left) is convinced that his grizzled neighbor actually is a
former superhero, now living incognito.

Either way, Schut’s premise is mildly novel, although the execution leaves much to be desired; viewers will depart this film vexed by a glaring hanging chad.

At its core, this story echoes the famous line from John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

 

As explained in a comic book-style flashback that introduces this film, Granite City once hosted a pair of supers: the virtuous Samaritan and his equally powered villainous rival, Nemesis. Their ongoing skirmishes climaxed in an epic battle 25 years ago, which claimed both their lives.

 

Since then, much of Granite City has become a crime-infested slum burdened by the disenfranchised and helpless homeless, overrun with greed and corruption, and ruled by roving gangs of criminal thugs.

 

Cinematographer David Ungaro and production designers Greg Berry and Christopher Glass certainly make everything look gritty and grimy.

 

Thirteen-year-old Sam Cleary (Javon “Wanna” Walton), thoroughly absorbed by the legend of Samaritan, has clung to the notion that — somehow — his hero actually survived that clash. This obsession has prompted him to mistakenly assume “superhuman qualities” in a long list of ordinary citizens, much to the annoyance of bookstore owner/journalist Albert Casler (Martin Starr), who has long investigated what actually is known about their city’s former supers.

 

Sam’s fixation also is a burden on his mother, Tiffany (Dascha Polanco), a single parent just barely making ends meet. Indeed, she often doesn’t make them meet, which prompts Sam — against his better judgment — to accept some easy money from local gang lord Cyrus (the hissably evil Pilou Asbæk, well remembered as the similarly vile Euron Greyjoy, in Game of Thrones).

 

Asbæk is totally terrifying, particularly when — with eyes widened and bulging to an almost impossible degree — he leans into somebody else’s face, either with quiet menace or enraged explosions of temper.

 

Sam also has been paying attention to Joe (Stallone), a reclusive garbage collector who repairs broken appliances in an apartment across the street from the boy’s bedroom window. Sam’s curiosity is further piqued when Joe rescues the boy from a beating by a trio of teenage thugs led by Reza (Moises Arias, memorably nasty); the older man handles the punks with eyebrow-lifting ease.

 

Joe rebuffs the boy’s excited curiosity for a time, but a subsequent incident removes all doubt; the older man definitely is an enhanced being.

 

I'll See You in My Dreams: Thoughtful character portrait

I'll See You in My Dreams (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for drug use and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Sometimes what seems like a comfortable rut actually is a slow slide into prolonged depression, at which point an unexpected crisis — or two — can transform unconfronted anxieties into utter despair.

Once beyond the initial awkwardness of their disparate ages, Carol (Blythe Danner) and
Lloyd (Martin Starr) discover that they genuinely enjoy chatting, and sharing little intimacies.
The question, moving forward, is where this relationship might go.

That’s the subject of director Brett Haley’s sweet, gentle drama, which draws its strength from a subtle and deeply layered performance by Blythe Danner. She stars as Carol Petersen, a comfortably retired single woman who — if asked —would insist that she has made peace with the unexpected loss of a beloved husband, some 20 years earlier.

After all, Carol’s life is filled with activity, much of it revolving around gardening, golf and boisterous bridge games — not much bridge actually being played — with longtime gal pals Rona (Mary Kay Place), Sally (Rhea Perlman) and Georgina (June Squibb). Carol’s schedule is disciplined to a reasonable degree, from the 6 a.m. wake-up buzz of her alarm clock, to a bit of television before lights out somewhere around 11 p.m. each evening.

But Carol hasn’t actually been alone; she has come to depend upon the constant presence of her beloved dog, Hazel. And therein lies the potential for emotional collapse.

After deftly establishing the parameters of Carol’s routine, Haley and co-scripter Marc Basch open their narrative with a gut-wrenching sequence. Hazel clearly is old, and so we’re not surprised by what occurs ... but animal lovers will have considerable difficulty surviving the subsequent scene in a veterinarian’s office, as Carol bids goodbye to her longtime companion.

Danner plays the scene so persuasively that I wondered if it could be genuine, the actress huskily trying to maintain composure while confronting the need to “do the kind thing” for an actual devoted pet. The scene feels that genuine, as anybody who has been there can attest.

And, suddenly, all the scheduled activities that have structured Carol’s life, for so long, have lost their luster. She’s hard-pressed to identify the actual problem, and at this point — this early in the film — she may not even be consciously aware that her fragility is rising.

Haley’s film is less a conventional drama, with strong plot points, and more a thoughtful tone poem: an often painfully intimate opportunity for us, as viewers, to confront our own perceived stability. The verisimilitude is strong. Danner’s Carol could be the vibrant and cheerful neighbor next door: the one with whom we exchange pleasant greetings, but rarely probe further. In a way, Haley and Basch quietly suggest that there’s much to be gained from getting to know such folks better, because we’re all — each of us — worth knowing better.