Firstc Good movie! Great plot! Edge of your seat twist and turns! Picture and acting qualities are excellent!.... If theirs anyone looking for good reviews and not sure of watching. Pay no mind to the bad reviews. If you like crime thrillers.. this is a good one!

Bjornar Moe Jacobsen It has potential, but unfortunately it runs on a pretetermined path of plots & scenes from other movies. So you're left with a movie you know where is going & the action to get there might not be worth your while.

viewsonfilm.com A petty thief who's also a budding photographer (and resident pot head), attempts to rob a rich guy's sterile abode. Here's the problem: That same rich guy has a woman chained up, held captive, and gagged in his office. Said guy finds out about the thief's break in (and rescue attempt) and tries to make his life a living hell. That's the gist of the decently acted, comically inept, and tamely R-rated, Bad Samaritan. It's my latest review. "Samaritan" is actually about a good Samaritan and not a bad Samaritan (despite the tag of the film's title). Sure the thief character pilfers stuff (by way of deceptive valet parking) but at least he's willing to save a human life, face alleged jail time, and not turn the other cheek. Anyway, Bad Samaritan while not quite recommendable, has one of the most original and most kosher premises of any flick I've seen this year. At an overlong running time of 111 minutes (when an hour and a half would've sufficed), "Samaritan" contains a small amount of Hitchcockian flavor, some overcast Rose City chic, and some rocketing buildup in its opening act. Then, the film piles on plot detours and turns until it concludes on a rather silly note. "Samaritan's" director (Dean Devlin) trades in his sci-fi producer roots to make a thriller that contains enough cell phone usage and clueless cop intuition to power a small country. His focus is on psychological tug of war, cliched Facebook notions, slick cars, requisite jump scares, and a lack of visible bloodshed. With Bad Samaritan's hyperactive musical score and overly earnest way of creating suspense, Devlin might be making a movie that's too mildly ambitious for its own good. He shoots "Samaritan" with a nippy, Portland, Oregon setting and a villain that looks like Kyle MacLaclan a la an episode of the defunct Tales from the Crypt. I was absorbed most of the way but I kept saying to myself, "Dean, just end this thing already". Bottom line: Bad Samaritan might be one of the best rentals of 2018 (disregard its paltry, $4.1 million take at the box office). Still, it gets a two and a half star rating from me. This "Samaritan" ain't bad but it presents itself in a disappointingly "charitable" way.

lavatch In the bonus track of "Bad Samaritan," there was the opportunity to listen to the writer and director discussing their film choices on a commentary track. Some of their insights were fascinating, and their comments were instructive about the decision-making process that goes into any feature film.One of the early choices made by the filmmakers was to change the nature of the protagonist, Sean Falco, from an American to an immigrant from Ireland. With his green card and uncertain status in America, Sean was all the more vulnerable when his life took a Kafkaesque turn. The film's original title, "Iron Girl" was thankfully changed to the more provocative "Bad Samaritan," shifting the focus to the leading character Sean.Another point made by the filmmakers was that the early feedback they received was that the early portion of the film was slow. But they clearly made some adjustments because the first quarter of the film was lively as it included the humorous antics of Sean as a petty thief, using his position as a valet at a restaurant to take patrons' cars, drive to their homes, and steal household items.Some of the funniest scenes were the ones in front of Nino's restaurant, where the valets have deluded themselves into thinking that they are competent criminals. But the film switches gears from the farcical to the thriller to the horror genres in the second quarter of the film. Sean discovers that the restaurant client Cale Erendreich is playing a deadly game, holding a woman in chains at his home. The second half of the film turns into a fairly predictable thriller with Sean's life turned into a nightmare by the sadistic Cole, as the cops and FBI prove incapable of competent investigative work.At one key juncture of the film, the villain shrieks, "I am the decider!" as he lords it over his helpless victim. It is only through the heroism of Sean that the sadist discovers that he cannot call all of the shots. There was good suspense, clever plotting, and nifty dialogue in this film, as well as some great location footage of Portland, Oregon.