Samaritan On Premiere Video: How Much Is A Superhero Movie With Sylvester Stallone Worth?

What are you doing?

Thirteen-year-old Sam Clare suspects that his mysterious and lonely neighbor, Mr. Smith, is actually a legend in hiding. 25 years ago, Granite City’s super-powered vigilante Samaritan was found dead in a warehouse after a tragic battle with his rival, Nemesis. Most people think the Samaritan died in the fire, but some locals, like Sam, hope he’s still alive. With the city on the brink of chaos and crime on the rise, Sam makes it his mission to convince his neighbor to come out of hiding and save the city from destruction.

Julius Avery’s Samaritan with Sylvester Stallone, Javon Walton and Pilou Asbeck. Available on Amazon Prime Video.

who is he with

Also credited as the film’s producer, Sylvester Stallone stars as the film’s lead, an old and lonely man who is recognized by a young neighbor as a former superhero he calls the Samaritan.

At the same time, the teenager is interpreted by the young actor Javon Walton. Mainly known to the public for appearing in the TV series Euphoria, the latter also appeared in the third season of Umbrella Academy this year.

Finally, the film’s big villain is played by Danish actor Pilu Asbæk, who was featured in the political series Borgen, and who has become one of Hollywood’s most fashionable bad boys since playing Euron Greyjoy in the final seasons of The Game. of thrones!

Last action superhero

Based on an original script rather than a comic book adaptation, The Samaritan marks the first time Sylvester Stallone has played a superhero. The interpreter of Rock and Rambo, now 76, was particularly invested in the project because of the “Stalonian” nature of this atypical hero, an aging and lonely man haunted by past wounds.

Conceived as a superhero film grounded in social reality, Samaritan demystifies the aura of the vigilante, who is shown here as a man of Herculean strength but full of flaws that ultimately make him less human. In a way, Samaritan is to superheroes what The Last Action Hero was to 80s action heroes, albeit without reproducing the self-deprecating tone of an Arnold Schwarzenegger film.

With a budget that puts it closer to a straight-to-video than a Marvel-style blockbuster, The Samaritan works more for its characters and mythology development than for some pretty cheap action sequences. The relationship between the main character and the young guy works well, but we can only regret that the villain fits into the story rather poorly.

Still, the movie’s bad guy, played by Pilu Asbæk in a fitting role, seems to have been sacrificed to the script. Thus, we do not really understand what made the latter admire the nemesis rather than the Samaritan and, in a sense, take the opposite path of the young hero. “The better the villain, the better the movie” said Hitchcock, and unfortunately this observation does not apply to the Samaritan.

with a reasonable duration of 1 hour. 39, Samaritan offers a satisfying performance for Sylvester Stallone fans, but also a regret that the feature film didn’t deepen the darkness of his world even more. At times, it almost feels as if Stallone is returning to the days of Judge Dredd and Demolition Man, among his last hits before his career began to decline in the mid-’90s.

But as is often the case with Stallone, the film offers a double layer of reading between the plot and the actor’s personal life. It was as if the story of this lost superhero, but somehow forgotten by his fans, was finally his.