The Samaritan
                                                                                
Director: David Weaver
Year: 2012
Rating: 5.5
It is hard to imagine that this film would have even been made if not for Samuel Jackson. He fits into his role like it was written for him. And it probably was. It has all those Jackson traits that we have come to love and expect. Tough, gritty, articulate, a delicate balance of morality, a fuck you attitude. But the film doesn't live up to him. It tries to be way too clever for its own good. Very little of it is believable. And a grift has to be believable to work on the screen. The Samaritan is a grift, a con that has its own name. You get your mark to think he is grifting you, while you are grifting him.



Foley (Jackson) was the master of the Samaritan. But 25-years in jail may have rusted over his instincts. When he gets out, no one is waiting for him at the prison gate. Everyone he used to know is dead or as good as. He just wants to go straight. Don't they always in the movies and don't they always get pulled in. He didn't spend time in prison though for a grift. That was for killing his best friend and partner. He didn't have much choice with three guns pointed at him. Kill him or we kill you. He does what most of us would. And has had 25-years to think about it.



The son (Luke Kirby) of his old best friend looks him up. Not for revenge. He wants to partner up with Foley for one big grift. $8 million big. Foley walks away. As he should. This guy gives off a bad smell like three days in a garbage can without a shower. Creep is written all over him. But he is persistent and Foley doesn't know it but the grift has already begun. On him. He meets cute with a young woman (Ruth Negga) - she is being forced to give a guy oral sex in a seedy bathroom. He clocks the guy and the woman is grateful. Very grateful. But it's part of the con. The big target though is played by Tom Wilkerson who we spotted earlier cutting the throat of a man who stole $200,000 from him. Not a man to make mistakes with. There is a very creepy sub-plot but I will leave that unsaid. There is a big build-up to the grift but then it is way too simple - until it goes wrong of course.