Samaritan
                                                                       
Director: Julius Avery
Year: 2022
Rating: 5.5
This is kind of an intriguing take on Shane. If Shane was a super hero. Which I guess he was. A reluctant super hero. Sylvester Stallone plays him here. He has become a more interesting actor as his face has gotten older and become a patchwork of scars, dents and furrows. From a distance he still looks to be in great shape, but as you get a close-up on his face, it shows the wear and tear of time. A tough guy who has taken his lumps. As a younger actor, his face was slack-jawed and showed no character really. Now it is all character. I like him fine in the TV show Tulsa and I like him here. He doesn't have to say much. His face says it all. The camera loves it now. Unfortunately, he isn't in it as much as you might like in the first hour of the film. It is mainly sticking with the Shane-type kid and I found him more irritating than not. Me and children in movies don't get along. I just wanted to put him in a gunny sack and drop him in the river. Leave the old man alone. As soon as Stallone takes over the film in the second half, it gets much better. But it needed the set-up.



Ten-year-old Sam (Javon 'Wanna' Walton) begins the film with a narration about the super hero Samaritan and his evil twin brother Nemesis. Twins that were mutant freaks who had super powers. One good, one not so much. He narrates events that took place 25-years ago when the twins fought to the death in a power station and died in the fire. Or did they? Sam and social media has started the conspiracy that Samaritan is still alive. And Sam keeps thinking he found him in some old man. His latest spotting is the garbage man Joe who lives in the building next door. A recluse. A silent man who just wants to be left alone. He picks up broken things out of the garbage and fixes them. His walk is a tired trudge.



One day three punks start beating up Sam and Joe breaks up the fight by tossing the punks 20 feet away. Maybe not something a super hero should do if he wants to remain hidden. Sam keeps bugging him and bugging him - I know you are Samaritan. Breaks into his apartment and finds an album of old clippings of Samaritan. At this point, you aren't really sure if Samaritan is even real or just an urban legend or a kid's fantasy. This doesn't seem like a world with super heroes in it. It is falling apart, the homeless are everywhere, random acts of violence are a constant, there seems to be little law and what there is, is corrupt. Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk) runs a gang of miscreants with big visions. He wants to be the new Nemesis and take over the city. They mess with the kid. That turns out to be a big mistake. Joe has taken a liking to him. And it turns into a super hero film.