[Freya-dæg] The (Good) Samaritan

{The Samaritan's movie poster, found on IMDb.}

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Plot Summary

Foley (Samuel L. Jackson) has just finished his 25 years in the joint and he's eager to start fresh. He meets with his parole officer, gets himself a job - and reconnects with his old partner's son, Ethan (Luke Kirby).

But Foley's chance meeting with Ethan almost causes his undoing, as it introduces the fiery Iris (Ruth Negga) into his life and threatens to pull Foley back into the very world that he wants so dearly to escape.

But meeting Iris quickly becomes a great thing for Foley. The two become more and more intertwined as a couple. In fact they become so close that there are no secrets between them. Except, as Foley finds out from Ethan, one. It's a secret that could tear Foley and Iris apart and twist the knife that knowing the secret himself has thrust into Foley's heart.

Ethan uses this secret as leverage to bring Foley in for one more big score. But will Foley go along with it? Will he be able to keep Iris in the dark or will she be able to handle the terrible truth? Most importantly, even if forced once more into the world that he vowed to leave behind, can Foley emerge once more as The Samaritan?

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The Good

For a Canadian film, The Samaritan is a slick picture that weaves a wondrous atmosphere around its viewer. From the dank streets of Toronto to a moody, Peter-Gabriel-esque sound track, this movie is one that offers more than just an escape, it offers a rewarding journey through the darkest of places.

Samuel L. Jackson gives a much more muted performance than in most of his other movies, as his is a character who's more reflective than violent. But this works well with the other elements of the movie and really helps to sustain its atmosphere. Also, Luke Kirby plays a perfect slime ball, while Ruth Negga does well as an addled lost woman.

{Foley, confronted by Ethan's questions of why he killed his father.}

But slick production values and strong casting aside, this movie pulls out one of the few trumps in the noir genre: the Oldboy card.

The twist that Oldboy deploys in its narrative is more elaborately delivered, but the pared down version found in The Samaritan is incredibly effective. What's more, it also takes some extra time to give greater depth to the entanglement between characters. Further, this device is such a rarity in Western cinema that it comes as a welcome surprise.

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The Bad

At the same time, The Samaritan is not without its problems.

The pacing of Foley and Iris' relationship is too fast, for starters. Not that a guy who's just gotten out of prison wouldn't fall for a girl like Iris as quickly as he does, but rather there's very little chemistry between them until Foley takes the initiative.

This makes sense, since Foley plays as the world-weary and in-control ex-con all the way through, while Iris is very much caught up in the world of the pimp's fist: opening to dispense coke, and closing to dole out cruel slavery. This dynamic later becomes something more, as Foley strives to help Iris get herself straightened out, but their bumpy start can't be ignored.

The movie's initiating moment, the one that sets up Ethan's and Foley's motivation for the whole of the movie, is also questionable.

In this moment, Foley is faced with the choice of seeing his best friend and partner being killed before being killed himself, or killing that friend, taking the fall, and having to live through prison. The way that this moment is introduced and then developed over the course of the movie does nothing to show us why Foley chose to live rather than die a Roman death.

After all, when he comes out of prison everything has changed, everyone he meets from his old life says that what they did was "1000 years ago," and he has no connections on the outside whatsoever. We don't even see any reason for Foley to have killed Ethan's father aside from his own cowardice (or, in Ethan's words, "to save his sorry ass").

It could be argued that this is how we're supposed to regard Foley throughout the picture, but this doesn't jive with his actual character as we see him. Throughout the movie he's calm, collected, and entirely together - he knows exactly what he's doing, how to do it, and how to keep calm while doing it. His is not the shakey hand of the coward, but the steady one of the expert.

Maybe there was some pivotal, off-camera moment in prison that turned him from craven to maven, but we don't see it and this creates a distracting disconnect between his apparent motivation for saving himself rather than just dying with his friend. And since the moment in which Foley made this decision is what leads to the rest of the movie, the plot itself is undermined.

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Judgment

The Samaritan is a movie that very clearly explains its own lukewarm reception.

Samuel L. Jackson is famous for starring in movies that grab your attention, shake you for an hour and a half and then leave you reeling. Likewise, film noir is a genre known for characters and plots that seize your interest and sweep you around from situation to situation until things conclude in a twist of some sort. Combine these two together, and you rightfully expect a twisted thrill ride that delivers atmospheric, hard-boiled action.

However, this just isn't the case.

The thrills are there, as are the twists and the characters, but nothing necessarily grabs and holds you. The whole movie is better described as a film that very clearly proclaims "I'm noir! ...and I'll just be right over there, okay?"

To really appreciate this movie, you need to be willing to take an active role. Not so that you can follow its complexities, but becuase the movie's not going to do much holding for you. It's a movie to get lost in rather than to be lost in. And that is a very refreshing change from movies in the action/noir genre that try to bludgeon their viewers with madcap sprees.

So, Freya, find this one brooding in the Field of Fallen Films, and bring it up, for it's truly a one that deserves to be seen.

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Closing

Tomorrow, watch for Annotated Links #19, and on Sunday for a look back/look ahead entry.

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[Freya-dæg] Nicolas Cage Month Pt. 1: Deadfall Review

{The Deadfall movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Co-written, directed, and produced by Christopher Coppola, Nicolas Cage may have gotten such a big role because of the family connection (Nic Cage is, after all a Coppola). Upon its initial release, the movie grossed $18,369 at the box office (and took 10 million to make), and critics panned it. As of this writing, the movie sits at a 0% among critics and a 29% among fans on Rotten Tomatoes - though Wikipedia notes that the Cage's role is among the best of his work that isn't supposed to be taken seriously.

So, it seems like Cage might be a high point, but what about the rest of the movie? Let's find out.

{Is Nicolas Cage a bad enough dude to save this movie?}

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Plot Summary

Meet Joe Donan (Michael Biehn), an all American boy with a secret: He's a con man. Joe's been running cons with his father Mike (James Coburn) for years, but when one of their grifts goes fatally wrong Joe follows his father's final wish and finds his twin brother. Joe meets his Uncle Lou (James Coburn) on the West Coast, along with his flunky Eddie (Nicolas Cage) and the mysterious Diane (Sarah Trigger).

Everything seems to be going well for Joe until jealousies and wild ambitions threaten to lead him into the same situation and even the same con that lead to his father's death. Will Joe be able to face up to his past in order to find his future? Or will he only stumble into the Deadfall?

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The Good

Staying very true to the form of the film noir, Deadfall is a very stylish movie. It's full of clean visuals, an excellent (if periodically ill-picked) soundtrack, and great lighting.

As per the movie's content, it also hits all of the necessary noir notes. It has a brooding hero with a past he'd rather forget, a mysterious strong-willed woman (played excellently by Trigger), a wild criminal, a calculating mastermind, and a plot that is all around sound.

Nic Cage also adds to the movie, though less through subtlety than through crazed abandon. Although we seldom see his character taking them, it's definitely clear that he's taking drugs, but what's curious about his performance here is that if the modern internet were around in the early 90s it would have been bristling with memes based on his performance here.

Cage's wild hollering, his strange intonation and word stressing, his unplaceable accent and mannerisms. In Deadfall, Nicolas Cage is practically a walking meme. Even *spoilers* his death */spoilers* could be made into a meme, or at the least could be used in a YouTube mashup with a voice over by the Mortal Kombat "Toasty!" guy.

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The Bad

It's unfair to say, but it must be said. This movie was made in 1993 and it shows. But, not in the production values, or in the special effects, more in the style and the atmosphere that it creates.

Film noir from earlier decades (China Town, Detour, The Manchurian Candidate, etc.) relied on subtlety and grit to keep their characters from becoming larger than life or unbelievable.

These elements are cast aside in Deadfall in favour of characters and situations that can only be described as *cue guitar riff* EXTRE-E-EME!

Cage himself is a good example of this, but so too are Dr. Lyme (Angus Scrimm) and Morgan "Fats" Gripp (Charlie Sheen).

Because these characters make the fiction of the movie that much larger, they make it seem a little more far-fetched than some may be willing to believe.

However, much more manifest in the movie is a problem with pacing. Thankfully it doesn't come up until the very end, but the way in which the history of Joe's parents and Uncle is revealed seems too rushed.

It's not until the last few minutes of that movie that we learn what happened between the brothers and the woman who is Joe's mother, and this is just far too late to really develop what could have been a great means of giving Joe and his father and uncle much more depth and intricacy.

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Judgment

Deadfall is a movie that deserves a second chance, a movie that was dealt with too harshly by its initial critics.

Showcasing the ham talent of a young Nicolas Cage, and encapsulating the spirit of driving things to the extreme in the 90s, its a movie that definitely should be watched by anyone interested in film noir, Nicolas Cage's career, or 90s film in general.

It's not perfect - it's definitely no Detour - but it tells its story in a competent fashion and features some great acting and actors.

So, Freya, part the glossy cloak of 90s style in which this one is wrapped and lift it up from the field of fallen films. This movie is one to be saved.

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Closing

Check back here next week for another piece of creative writing, another editorial on the newest news, and a hunt for the good in Season of the Witch. Also, be sure to check this blog on Tuesday and Thursday for more annotated links.

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