Fury

Samuel Jackson shows off his acting chops in this gritty action thriller, with supporting actors doing a great job. He plays a man fresh out of prison after twenty five years who wants to go straight, but as it's mentioned in the movie, cons always say that at first. His past catches up to him in a huge way. Sure, we've seen plenty of this before, but the action moves right along with suitably dark sets and mood music to accompany all the nifty twists and turns. A nice surprise is young Ruth Negga who more than holds her own with the veterans. All in all a good effort, well worth the time to seek out, especially for Jackson fans.

It is another action / noir - or whatever you wanna name it - film. Things are explained in half a second and the action, drama and love scenes take long minutes. A typical "you don't nedd to understand it, simply enjoy the action" thing. But you know what? That's what entertainment seems to be. Not that I like it, but it is what it is. And the film brings Samuel L. Jackson, one of everybody's favourite actors, so it is worthy trying "The Samaritan". The twists in the plot , mainly in the last minutes, play a good role and make the 90 min projection a good time.

Try it, but don't expect a lot.

The background music far too loud to hear the mumbled dialogue in many scenes. Plus the background music is horrible, often vibrating in my head completely distracting me from the dialogue. The plot is disjointed and barely believable, yet predicable. The grift twists were not believable, in fact the grift itself was too simple to be realistic. Too many scenes are in the dark or weird yellow light. The 'surgeon' must been absolutely brilliant to work in the dim yellow light of his room. It's very hard to say more about this movie as it was pretty much a yawning waste of ninety minutes. Samuel L Jackson is an excellent actor, I'm a fan but I'm surprised he made this movie. The English actor/master criminal Tom Wilkinson wasn't believable, he looked more like a merchant banker. Very disappointing.

The plot: An ex-con looking to go straight is blackmailed into one last grift.

I'm a huge sucker for film noir, so it's not like I could pass up a chance at watching a gritty crime thriller with Sam Jackson. I was a bit apprehensive when I saw the critical disdain, but I figured it'd be worth a try. I think some of the critics were a bit harsh, but this isn't really a great movie. There are certainly some good aspects to it, but the aggressively derivative elements really drag down the score. If it had been less of a pastiche (and outright ripoff) of certain movies, this could have been good. Unfortunately, to mention its primary inspiration would be a huge spoiler.

If you're tolerant of "homage", not looking for a unique story, and are a fan of either noir or Sam Jackson, then there's a fair chance that you'll enjoy The Samaritan. I found it quite watchable, but I was not impressed with the directing or writing. The acting, on the other hand, was fine. There are only two or three scenes with Sam Jackson's trademark outbursts of angry yelling, so you might want to load up Pulp Fiction again if that's what you're looking for.

Any true Sam Jackson fan has sat through some really terrible movies. This is nowhere near the bottom, but it's somewhat frustrating in that you can see how this could have been a good movie if they'd tried a little harder.

Samuel L. Jackson and his "rival" in this movie bring their A-game for this. I can only imagine that Sam read the script and went "Holy ..." when he read one of the "turning points" in it. It's really something, though maybe not completely unpredictable, it did catch me by surprise and was a nice thing.

While the cover might be suggesting more action that is actually in this, it still is highly thrilling and tries to stay as grounded (in reality) as possible. It achieves that more often than not and will surely not only appeal to fans of Mr. Jackson. Maybe the bad guy here will get a few new fans as well. It's not an easy task to hold your own against the sheer ferocity and will of Sam. A nice little thriller that can ...