Review: The Samaritan (2012)

by

16, May 2012Reviews

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Luke Kirby, Ruth Negga
Director: David Weaver
Country: Canada
Genre: Thriller
Official Trailer: Here

When not busy tying together the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a series of epilogistic cameos or subsequently damning A.O. Scott and his liver both for not enjoying such, Samuel L. Jackson has found the time in the last half-decade to wander into a number of smaller films. The latest of these, The Samaritan—cheekily retitled Fury for UK audiences—sees Jackson playing an aged and wizened version of his typical screen persona. His goatee is grey as he leaves prison after twenty-five years, his head heavy as he relates his reasons to the son of the conman partner he murdered, his hand hesitant as said son invites him to help with a lucrative grift.

As this conman, Foley, Jackson gives a performance of remarkable restraint—remarkable, that is, given the accentuated mania his characters have typically wielded in recent years.

It’s nice to see Jackson, sans eye patch, allowed the room to exercise his real dramatic muscles again. Much as he’s had a fine time playing the role of Nick Fury, and no doubt a profitable one too, the Avengers films have relegated him all too often to the background, never really affording him the chance to demonstrate his real skills of characterisation. With its wearied protagonist struggling to stay detached from the world he once knew, The Samaritan offers precisely the kind of opportune character he’s not had in years. As this conman, Foley, Jackson gives a performance of remarkable restraint—remarkable, that is, given the accentuated mania his characters have typically wielded in recent years. To see him solemnly brood over his circumstances is a rare treat, reminding us of the human being too often hidden beneath the shouting persona.

Jackson’s performance here is a real wonder, it’s just a shame that the film itself struggles to bequeath him the right dramatic circumstances to make something significant of it. An emotional emphasis in director David Weaver’s script makes pointed use of its star’s potential in the opening act, legitimately conveying the struggle of a man to evade the only life he has ever really known. Of course, when Luke Kirby arrives as the son to convince Foley to take on one last job, we know he eventually will. It’s in watching him battle his demons that we find ourselves rooting for him, not in the eventual and inevitable implementation of the con. Rather than allowing Jackson to convey this as he capably can, Weaver instead entrusts it to a needless subplot that suddenly becomes something glaringly reminiscent of a certain well-loved film of the last decade. It’s a terrible manoeuvre that takes things entirely in the wrong direction, making The Samaritan more a derivative genre piece than the storied character drama it set out to be.

Even granting Weaver the benefit of the doubt and assuming his plot twist is more perchance than purloin, it’s a curiosity that so evident a similarity could make it through each step of production.

Few will be able to sit back and watch The Samaritan without being shocked at its descent into territories so familiar. Even granting Weaver the benefit of the doubt and assuming his plot twist is more perchance than purloin, it’s a curiosity that so evident a similarity could make it through each step of production. It becomes the defining factor of the film, a disparagement that does Jackson’s fine work a considerable disservice. To have on his hands so understated, so rich, so long overdue a performance and then to throw it away on so desultory a sequence of events is Weaver’s fatal error, rapidly and inexorably plunging his film from the realms of greatness to that of mere mediocrity. We’re left to wonder what might have been, barely paying attention to the final scenes as we ponder instead the road not taken.

What remains is a relatively standard story of layered cons and convoluted loyalties, given at least serviceable life by Tom Wilkinson as the maniacal mark with a penchant for casual brutality. His performance is fun, if perhaps a little Albert Brooks-lite, granting some degree of salvation to a comparably vacuous final third. The good time he has in the role is something we could do with indulging in vicariously; we need it by then, Sam’s long since reverted to shouting.

60/100 ~ OKAY. To have on his hands so understated, so rich, so long overdue a performance and then to throw it away on so desultory a sequence of events is Weaver’s fatal error, rapidly and inexorably plunging his film from the realms of greatness to that of mere mediocrity.

Ronan Doyle
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Assistant Editor and Senior Film Critic. Having spent the vast majority of my life sharing in the all too prevalent belief than cinema is merely dumbed-down weekend escapism for the masses, I was lucky enough to turn on a television at the exact right moment to have my perspectives on the medium completely transformed. Those first two and a half hours marked the beginning of a new life revolving around—maybe even depending upon—the screen and the depth of artistry, intellectual stimulation, and emotional exhilaration it can provide.