Samaritan is an Amazon Prime original film starring Sylvester Stallone. I didn’t have high expectations and had, in fact, heard it dismissed as Stallone’s version of Hancock (i.e. a superhero flick about a washed-up superhero). And certainly the early review scores are terrible… so what movie did I see?

The film is set in a city that once had a superhero named Samaritan and an villain named Nemesis. They fought and died a couple decades earlier and now the city is in decline. A young at-risk boy believes Samaritan is still alive and is probably Joe, a garbage collector played by Stallone.

I’m shocked I wound up enjoying this movie as much as I did. For the first hour or so, it’s a decent “boy and his superhero” flick with a bit of a grimy (but PG-13) edge. It was pretty decent. The actors were putting in fine performances and the cinematography and set decoration were gritty. There wasn’t a lot of meat to the idea of a boy harassing a crusty old Stallone but the kid’s run-ins with gangs and criminals were pretty good.

But in the film’s second half, the movie unexpected crept up on me and became this rock solid action flick. We get more development of the villain who wants to tear the system down and Stallone puts in an angry, aggressive performance. His action scenes are raw, rage-filled, and tactile. I didn’t see it coming.

This is a pretty street-level, grungy hero flick… in fact, you could eject the minimal “super” part of the hero story and just look at it as a crime drama about a city on the edge of collapse. Stallone needn’t have super strength and the film would still work. Though seeing him in action – which is low-key compared to a DC or Marvel flick – is pretty cool.

It’s refreshing to get a fairly low budget superhero flick that isn’t a hundred million dollar CGI extravaganza. I like those movies too, but it’s really nice that we can get something different. Something more grounded and practical. This might be the cure for people who are tired of the CGI overkill and want something on a more human level.

I won’t accuse Samaritan of changing the world, but it certainly changed my mind. It’s a pretty decent film before it’s a very good film and that’s good enough for me. Plus it’s nice to see Stallone back in action… I bet he had a blast.

Score: 86