3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Samaritan

2012, David Weaver (Christmas Island) -- download

OMG I unintentionally watched a legit movie by one of the directors who does my Hallmarkies.

I have a tag -- "got to it". Its intended to label those movies I need to get around to watching, which include seminal movies I have not seen, for one reason or another (e.g. The Godfather), but also movies that were high on my list to see, but I keep on ... not watching them (e.g. Parasite). My excuse is that I like to have a bunch of movies to watch when everything recent is bringing me down, when I want to watch something that I know will be good. But to be honest, its more often than not just easier to watch things easily digested, than things I have to pay attention to. But there is a third type of movie that gets into this tag -- those that I added to a perpetual draft post in this blog called "Need to Watch". This post was created "back in the day", when the blog was first launched, over a decade ago, and then abandoned a few years later, because it was starting to look more like a stack of books on a bedside table -- more added to it than removed. The movies listed here are "old", but many were added only because they caught my attention for one reason or another. I intend on going through it, to see what I have missed.

I am very glad I added this one. I am glad Ebert suggested it. I am glad I get to go back and read his writing. I am not sure I ever found others writing about movies as compelling since he left this world, and since I have completely given up on writing "reviews" (I leave the proper writing of such to Kent) I can only provide long rambling anecdotes and complaints. And on occasion, try to find something nice to say about something I enjoyed.

I like this neo-noir movie very much, I liked how other it was, as in feeling so different than anything I have watched of late. Its not even from that long ago, to be a different era, but it felt like a work of dark, gritty passion, even going so far down the different road to be shot and set in Toronto. As Ebert said, Toronto is not a city associated often with noir, but they find enough dark alleys, grimy diners and a seedy bar to make it believable.

Foley (Samuel L Jackson, Snakes on a Plane) gets out of prison after 25 years, connects with a parole officer, gets a shitty construction job (which he loses immediately), and finds out that all of his friends are long dead. The Life doesn't promote long lives. That's when he bumps into Ethan (Luke Kirby, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), the son of the man who Foley went to prison for killing, the man who was Foley's best friend and partner in grifting, who Foley was given the option, after a grift went totally wrong, of killing or them both being killed. Foley is honest with Ethan, who is doing OK (runs a night club, but is beholden to a nasty mob boss) because he wants Ethan to know he is out of The Life. Ethan has other plans.

In the same seedy bar where Foley used to hang decades earlier, Foley saves Iris (Ruth Negga, Preacher), a club girl beholden to Ethan, from a shitty date. Two people in terrible situations, with shitty lives, connect. She is OK he is an ex-con convicted of murder, he is OK she's an addict. They "setup house" together, as they say, while Ethan is still doing his best to convince Foley to join him on a con. She even admits that she was sent to him by Ethan, but they move past that.

Until Ethan pulls his ace card, explaining a situation I won't spoil, but suffice to say, it is so much much worse than what they've shared with each other. Foley cuts Iris loose to work with Ethan on the con job against Ethan's (mob) boss -- a grift called "The Samaritan". Things don't go as planned for any of the parties, but there is some redemption to be found.

This movie came out between Captain American: The First Avenger and The Avengers, but I suspect most of the principal shooting was done before either. This is not a polished "Nick Fury" Sam Jackson, as he carries his age and the character's incarceration. Very little of the movie is polished but that lends an air of authenticity. And the commitment to the roles belies any lack of polish.