Bad Samaritan is the kinda movie you watch when you’re done purchasing your groceries and about to leave the shopping mall when all of a sudden it starts to rain heavily. Yes, for whatever reason you’ve parked your car outdoors and now you’re stuck. So you’re like, “F*ck it. I’ll just catch Avengers: Infinity War for the 5th time,” only to realize that it’s fully booked for the next 20 weeks straight. So, you try to purchase tickets to A Quiet Place instead, except there’s a giant sign that reads: No groceries allowed in A Quiet Place. And then someone punches you in the face with brass knuckles and drags your unconscious body to Bad Samaritan. I guess what I’m trying to say is, you’re never going to watch this nonsense and this review isn’t going to convince you otherwise.
To be fair, the movie doesn’t suck from the start. I waltzed into the press screening of Bad Samaritan without watching any of the trailers or reading the premise. And boy was I in for a surprise. We follow Sean Falco (Robert Sheehan) and his buddy, who scam people by working as valets and then follow their customers’ cars’ GPS home and rob their houses. It’s a simple but effective plan. On one seemingly normal day of burglary, Sean discovers a young woman held captive, bruised, bloodied and gagged, in a house, he was in the midst of robbing. The hard left turn caught me off guard in the best ways possible. Suddenly, I was very, very interested.
Until I wasn’t. After establishing its premise, the movie spirals into mediocrity. Bad Samaritan is billed as a thriller, but beyond the gripping set up, there is nothing remotely thrilling about it. And that is its biggest problem. If a comedy doesn’t make you laugh, it fails. Similarly, if a thriller doesn’t keep you at the edge of your seat or make the hair at the back of your neck stand, then what’s the point? The movie lacks the kind of atmosphere present in the best thrillers — Think Nightcrawler, Rear Window and every David Fincher movie (including The Social Network). I’m talking about the silence, the tension and feeling the air sucked out the room you’re in.
Bad Samaritan is flat and poorly directed and frankly, I’m not surprised. This movie is helmed by Dean Devlin, the genius behind 2017’s best movie, Geostorm. And just like in that Gerard Butler crap show, Devlin once again doesn’t seem to know exactly the kind of movie he’s trying to make. At times the movie is serious and other times, even supposedly serious moments are played off as comedy, but not to the point where it feels like a satire. The tone is all over the place.
The character writing is hit or miss too. Bad Samaritan works best when our protagonist is just some dude caught in the middle of this crazy circumstances. Which is why the initial set up of the film works really well. When Sean first discovers the girl, he trembled in fear, so much so you could feel the vibrations of his shaking balls seep through the screen. He wants to help her, but does what most people would do in that situation. He chickens out and runs for it. He goes to the authorities and fumbles through his explanation, clearly shaken.
But as the movie progresses, Sean decides that he needs to take matters into his own hands and begins his own investigation and omg cut the crap. This is also the kind of movie where the police officers and even FBI agents sometimes feel like they spent a better part of their childhood in bimbo valley.
Good guy : Hey Mr. Police officer, I’ve got concrete evidence in the form of a PHOTOGRAPH, that woman is tied up in a psycho’s house.
Police : Pfffffft, you Googled that picture.
But it’s not so much about these authority figures being incompetent, it’s the fact that you don’t buy them as authority figures in the first place.
The only bright spot in Bad Samaritan is David Tennant’s performance. If you’re unfamiliar with Tennant’s work, check out Jessica Jones on Netflix. His work as Killgrave is brilliant, delivering a restrained performance that will leave you feeling anxious and frustrated. Here, Tennant knows he’s in a nonsensical movie and he plays it up, holding nothing back. His character Cale Erendreich is kind of ridiculous absolutely crazy and oftentimes seems to be in a completely different movie altogether. But considering this is a movie that doesn’t know what it is in the first place, does it really matter?
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