TAKING OUT THE TRASH (SAMARITAN)

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We've had Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, Ant Man, Iron Man and Superman.

But we haven't had Binman.. until now.

Okay, so it's not quite Binman.

In Hollywood's latest superhero offering, Sylvester Stallone plays a guy called Joe who works in a waste collection depot.

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But it appears that's only his civilian profession.

Sly plays a septuagenarian who as the film progresses, Stallone is suspected of being Samaritan - a mythic superhero who unlike others going by that title doesn't man telephone helplines for the suicidal or emotionally distressed.

In Julius Avery's MGM, United Artists and Amazon Prime movie this Samaritan is a superhero who reluctantly kicks butt.

Adapted by Bragi F Schut from his own Mythos Comics graphic novel, Avery's film is another tale set in a rain sodden fictional US metropolis with inhabitants who wallow in the inner city grime.

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Granite City is beset with all the usual crime problems you get in superhero movies.

Gangs of lawless punks wander the streets terrorising shopkeepers, looking like rejects in a Death Metal band.

Things have gotten worse eversince the rumoured deaths of Samaritan and his nasty twin brother Nemesis.

A kind of "good superhero, bad superhero" situation, in a typical superhero movie preamble we are told that Samaritan and Nemesis were twins who had different outlooks on life.

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They fell out, with Nemesis forging a Thor like hammer with the capacity to kill his brother.

Nemesis wanted to get rid of the pesky, goody two shoes Samaritan, so he could unleash a reign of terror on his hometown.

And so he hatched a plan to plunge Granite City literally into darkness while he and his brother duked it out in the city's power plant.

As the power plant went up in flames, neither were seen again.

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However rumours have persisted down the years that Samaritan survived the blast while Nemesis perished and that he is living among Granite City's downtrodden masses.

Javon Walton's 13 year old Sam Cleary is one of those citizens who is obsessed with the tale.

The child of a hard working single mom, Dascha Polanco's Tiffany Cleary, he has no father figure in his life.

Sam immerses himself in the folklore around Samaritan and the theory that he is still alive - irritating Martin Starr's jaded superhero expert Albert Cashier who no longer believes the superhero survived.

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With Tiffany struggling to pay their rent, Sam falls in with a gang of reprobates led by Pilou Asbaek's Cyrus who is also obsessed with the Samaritan tale but is in intent on reviving Nemesis.

Getting initially into low level shoplifting, Sam falls foul of the weediest looking member of Cyrus' gang,  Moises Arias' dreadlocked Reza when their plan to rob a convenience store goes wrong.

Despite Reza's anger, Cyrus takes a liking to Sam and gives him $110 for his trouble.

Reza is left smarting and along with some members of his gang ambushes Sam and starts to assault the boy until Stallone's septuagenarian garbage man turns up and knocks seven bells out of you know what out of them.

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Sam is so amazed he becomes convinced Joe is actually Samaritan and sets about proving his theory.

Meanwhile Cyrus and his sidekicks, including Sophia Tatum's Sil and Jared Odrick's Farshad, raid a police storage facility and nick Nemesis' mask and hammer.

When Cyrus unveils himself one night as Nemesis II after setting off an explosion in a neighbourhood, Joe is reluctant to get involved.

But after surviving an attempt by Reza and Farshad to mow him down in a hit and run, he also attracts the interest of Cyrus who wants to see if he really is Samaritan.

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Farshad and some of Cyrus' goons attempt to bring Joe to meet their boss but a fight breaks out which is captured on cellphones.

And when Joe rescues a young girl from a grenade thrown during the fight, rumours swirl on TV and the city streets that Samaritan is still alive.

But how long will it be before Cyrus encounters Joe and sets out to complete what the original Nemesis failed to do?

Will Joe get reluctantly drawn into saving Granite City and can he cope with the physical demands on his body in his advancing years? 

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And will the sun ever shine in this movie?

As superhero movies go, 'Samaritan' rates slightly above middle ranking superhero fare and is made watchable by its lead man.

Avery's movie has all the necessary fist fights, dastardly plots, damp streets and explosions you'd expect from a superhero adventure.

It is big on urban decay and it has the kind of pantomime villain that all superhero movies have these days.

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It is no better or no worse than what you get from most of Disney's Marvel movies or Warner Bros' DC Comics films.

It isn't taxing. 

It's a place your brain to the side on the sofa adventure.

But it does boast one of Stallone's best screen performances.

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As in 'Rocky,' 'Copland' and 'Creed,' Stallone is always at his best when playing a guy on the lowest rung of the social ladder who is written off but who harbours a remarkable inner strength.

He does a really decent job in Avery's film portraying a reluctant superhero who just wants a quiet life and is keen to forget his past.

Walton is, it must be said, a bit irritating as the naive fanboy teenager but he's meant to be.

Asbaek makes for a decent panto villain - full of surface charm but capable of undeniable cruelty and evil.

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Tatum, Odrick and Arias are suitably scuzzy as Cyrus' punks, while Polanco turns in a standard harassed single mom performance and does it well.

And in the brief moments he is onscreen, Starr fully embraces the role of a grown up nerd.

There's nothing particularly original about Avery's film or Schut's script.

However at a running time of around an hour and 40 minutes, the movie moves at pace.

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It never drags and the action sequences and effects are handled well.

'Samaritan,' though, is Stallone's movie and thrives as a result of his hangdog, reluctant persona.

It is a rare example of a by the book superhero story that is somehow better than it should have been.

And it is also a good example of how smart casting and an engaged, experienced lead actor can tart up a pretty ordinary script.

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Originally intended for theatrical release in 2020, 'Samaritan' was one of those films that got snarled up waiting to be given its shot while the COVID pandemic disrupted cinema schedules.

Now consigned to a streaming release, it adjusts quite well to the small screen.

Does it merit a sequel? Probably not.

But watch Amazon, United Artists and MGM resist that temptation if it performs very well on streaming. 

('Samaritan' was released on Amazon Prime on August 26, 2022)