Two new releases promise so much more they deliver. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t zooming up the charts. As with Red Notice, it’s the allure of star power when paired with tepid screenplays, that held much promise, then tailed to deliver.
Samaritan (Amazon Prime) - Magic word here is Sylvester Stallone, in a film that has to do with a retired superhero who either died or vanished twenty years ago, when fatally duelling with his brother, Nemesis. The intro sets the premise, as narrated by a young boy, Sam (Jevon Walton). As it is, the Stallone character is now a garbage collector, and of course, refuses to admit he was, at one time, the Samaritan superhero. Naturally, the young boy gets mixed up with the wrong crowd, and without much logic or plausability, the old man is the one he bonds with and eventually, to our surprise (not), we discover that the boy’s suspicions are right. There is some chemistry between Stallone and Walton, and it helps gloss over how predictable this all is.
This for me is the real problem here, there is absolutely nothing new being offered in this film. The setting of Granite City is dark and ominous, with a veneer of socio-political commentary being offered as a motivator and premise - but when the bad guys claiming to be saviors of the poverty-stricken and disenfranchised are just bad, reprehensible people to begin with, it’s hard to empathize with them. So it just ends up as a world of blacks and whites, and the onscreen charm of Stallone isn’t enough to carry this film onto the next, required level. And it is a waste, as Stallone showed us with Creed that there still was room for him producing, directing, and starring. But this film isn’t it, failing to deliver on many counts.
Me Time (Netflix USA) - Here’s still another buddy film for Kevin Hart, as film producers (including Kevin himself) seem to believe there’s no better formula than pairing Kevin with some big established star, and not letting him carry the film on his own. I think the bigger problem is that these producers seem to think that the mere pairing of Hart with another big star is all that they need. They seem to forget that a decent screenplay, and more than caricatures of characters, plus actual chemistry between the stars would be helpful. On those three counts, this Me Time is a great example of how said pairing just isn’t enough. In fact, it would be fair to say that while Hart does fine establishing his character, the same can’t be said for the Mark Wahlberg character.
The less said about this the better, as Huck (Wahlberg) is just a set of cliches centered on the kind of high school friend from way back, who has grown rich and semi-famous, but has never grown up. The sadder part is that several of the minor characters are funnier, have better lines, and are the ones who make us genuinely laugh. There are laughs here, to be fair, but it seems the model Dad character of Sonny (Hart) is just an overdone set-up for the set situations and jokes that follow, rather limply. But then again, maybe the ones who know better are the producers who did get the green light and moolah to make these films and get the big marketing push from Netflix.