The Samaritan (2012)

"So whaddya say, baby? Shall I put on some Marvin Gaye?"

At a glance:

All Samuel L. Jackson movies are at least half watchable and this offbeat pulp fiction drops ever so neatly into that category - it jolts, it teases and then at the end credits you're left decidin whether this movie axiom remains true. The veteran anti-hero relishes the tag of bein one of Hollywood's most charismatic actors, a son of a gun who gets paid to shout at people, picture after picture. So when he's not in an eye-patch assemblin mutants to fight aliens, he's in The Samaritan (2012) playin an embattled ex-con (convict AND conman) who had just done a 25-year stretch, only to come out to a strange world populated by characters like Ethan (Luke Kirby), the son of the partner he murdered, and Iris (Ruth Negga) the enigmatic addict nympho who's got the hots for him. The hoverin crime boss Xavier (Tom Wilkinson) provides further intrigue.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Err... how do I say this? The Samaritan changes genre midway and there's a twist in the middle that beggars belief. Worse, it's been done before, so if I tell you which famous movie it's from, it will utterly spoil it for you. This twist is so pivotal and monolithic that entire scripts can be built around it, so it doesn't quite sit in with the rest of the various noir elements in the movie. Perhaps a hint of this iffy approach could be seen in Samuel L Jackson himself, who appears rather bored most of the time, despite also co-producin the movie. He's the master of persuasion and always makes his characters count but in this heist flick gone wrong, we really have to wonder why this story needed to be told. The film is shot by director David Weaver entirely in Toronto and that ain't exactly one of the first cities that come to mind when you're sellin a noir or heist.

Ruth Negga

"You're old enough to be my father...
and that's how dirty I like it."

Perennial wonderment:

Why can't Ruth Negga get more roles outside of TV? She's the delectable Irish-Ethiopian beauty we saw in Breakfast On Pluto (2005) and that crazy cow horror Isolation (2005). Very Thandie Newton, perhaps with a more ethnic edge. Her looks here directly lent some credibility to movie logic and kept the movie from fallin apart. While we're talkin about looks, there's a small role here for Deborah Kara Unger. Don't know if her placid, botoxed look is part of the character but she sure don't look like the spring chicken she was back when she was gettin her kit off for Michael Douglas in The Game (1997).

Reminds me of:

You know I can't spoil it for you.

Watch out for:

When the big twist is given away. People were laughin out loud in my hall.

Most memorable line:

"If you keep on doing what you've always done, you keep on being what you've always been."

"You could always get a job at McDonald's or Walmart, honey."

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Two and a half, I'd say. Rushed endin drew disaffected faces at an advanced screenin I attended at AMC Yonge. On a partin note, the term "Samaritan" is a reference to a type of con, by which it succeeds when con artists get one person to pose as a helpful friend to the mark to gain his trust. Watch the video below for Samuel L Jackson's explanation.

Bonus material:

The Samuel L Jackson Venn Diagram.
[click to enlarge]
Kudos to the guy who thought of it.

In Samuel L Jackson's own words:
Why is it called the Samaritan?

Isolation (2005)

The traditional way of making beef jerky.

At a glance:

"Holy cow!" is the obvious, blasphemous and yet appropriate response to this very unrewardin movie. There are crowd-pleasin blockbusters and there are niche-market, art house indies. Then there are films like Isolation, ones that befuddle the human mind to no end.

Essie Davis gets to grace this poster.
Others I've seen feature Ruth Negga.

Bad news on the doorstep:

So befuddlin was it that it befuddled itself into the hearts of several film festival judges and won some mediocre horror movie awards even! How do we make heads and tails of this one? It's essentially a one-sentence movie - a full-length feature about a mutant cow foetus terrorisin an Irish farm. Oh wait – there's actually a few of them, but one was particularly difficult to capture. In any case, it's about Dan Reilly (John Lynch), an Irish farmer whom we are told is a little short on money. It soon transpires through Orla (Essie Davis), the vet, that together they have been workin for mad scientist John (Marcel Iures) in bizarre biological experiments involving cow-breedin. Meanwhile, a young couple (Sean Harris and Ruth Negga), runnin away from an unknown enemy, enters the fray when Dan experiences trouble with a calf and asks for help. Soon however, the fate of everyone on the farm becomes inextricably linked with a missin cow foetus.

Reminds me of:

The now-defunct Cathay-Keris distribution arm in Malaysia. When I watched this in 2007 under their limited release, this movie was showin at one solitary cinema nationwide, givin its film title the most fittin tribute ever.

I have no clue what's goin on here.

Or here.

I can't remember if I cried:

Havin such an unusual plot, this was bound to provide at least some shock entertainment, you'd think. So many things were out of place however, when shock turned to schlock within the first 30 minutes, the most frustratin being the characters which are so painfully disengagin. I couldn't be bothered if they died, lived, won the lottery or turned into lactatin mutant cows. With no real protagonists, coupled in with a claustrophobic settin, the appeal became very limited. The ecological arguments of genetic tamperin in this movie were already lost – not on merit, but attention – by the time the crawlin foeti stopped makin you go 'euww'.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Ruth Negga

There's one savin grace - the traditional FX. This would've been a straight-to-DVD feature if the cows were anywhere near digital. What we get to see is quite graphic – say, a vaginal checkup performed on a cow – and the details of the goo, gum, teeth and blood are a nice touch. Bein so stickily real, the movie however shot itself in the hoof (ha!) again when the screenplay didn't allow for a fuller view of the mutant cow in question. Well, it did teach me about how swingin a newborn calf around your head from its hind legs is supposed to accelerate blood flow to the heart. Moo-ving stuff, eh?★1/2
Bonus material:

Like this character, I was drowning in the movie.