Amazon Original Movie Samaritan stars Sylvester Stallone as Joe Smith, a live-action adaptation based on the 2014 comic of the same name. While I’ve personally enjoyed a healthy dose of Sylvester Stallone movies in the past (thanks to fond memories of me and my brother performing in Rock Balbo’s training montages), Samaritan is full of poorly choreographed action scenes and dialogue. poorly written that create a great mood. killers for fans of action movies.
Movie quality aside, in the following article I take a deep dive into the plot of Samaritan, along with a look at the ending, piecing together everything that happened. Please keep in mind spoilers and read them at your own discretion.
Samaritan (2022) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis:
The film Samaritan revolves around a thirteen-year-old boy named Sam (Javon Walton, who played Ash on the HBO television series Euphoria), who lives with his mother Tiffany (Orange is the New Black’s Dascha Polanco) who is a nurse trying to make ends meet. Constantly updated with the news about Granite City, he is on a quest to discover if there is any truth behind the legendary story of the twin brothers/superheroes: Samaritan and Nemesis.
One day, Sam notices eviction papers left for his apartment and the door sealed. While he waits outside for his mother, his friend bullies him into making easy money. The idea of making a quick buck excites Sam, so he visits an old junkyard owned by Cyrus, the leader of the local thugs and thugs. Cyrus rewards him for not ratting people out on him after a local robbery goes wrong. When Cyrus goes through his scrapbook, which has many references and drawings of the twins, he explains why he likes the evil Nemesis brother over the good one.
Meanwhile, Joe Smith, an old garbage man, catches Sam’s eye with his strange behavior of picking broken appliances out of the bin and fixing them. Curious to find out more about this man, Sam follows him everywhere. One day, while Joe is away from his business, the young man breaks into his house and checks his diary, only to discover that the old man is the Samaritan. Excited to find this information, he follows and pesters Joe to find out more about him. However, the man of few words that he is, Joe, does not reveal much and continues with his life.
One day, when Sam gets punched by Reza and his goons, Joe comes to his rescue and hits back. Witnessing that Joe is not as cold-hearted as he assumed, he instantly befriends him and the two spend more time together as Sam gets to know him better.
On the other hand, Granite City is dying due to unemployment and poverty. The people of the city are slowly succumbing to the cost of living and it has become impossible to survive with the rising crime rate. Cyrus is taking advantage of the current situation in the city. He builds an army of people, brainwashes them with his egotistical propaganda and tells them lies that will save them from their sufferings.
The film also shows us a flashback of when the two superheroes or the twin brothers go to war. As they grew up, the twins were indestructible and the townspeople began to fear them. One day, people set fire to their house, killing the parents of the twins. While the good brother grew up to become a Samaritan, the other eventually gave in to his revenge. He started plotting bombs all over the city to avenge his pain and also kill his brother with it. Although the legendary story that surrounds them makes people believe that two brothers died in the explosion, the film has more to say.
Moving forward in the movie, we see Cyrus steal the Nemesis mask and the hammer that the superhero forged to fight his brother. With the power of the weapon and the massive following of the townspeople, Cyrus starts an uprising which is his way of slowly destroying the town.
At the same time, because of another round of quick cash, Cyrus approaches Sam and offers him a job. However, Sam, who has been impartial to Cyrus all this time, soon learns of his true motive when he sees him kill a cop who ratted him out.
After witnessing the crime, Sam runs away and finds Reza and his associates hassling his friend Jace for some money. Hell-bent on confronting the thugs, the young man is brutally beaten by them. Dropping Sam off in front of his building, Reza realizes that the older man he had run over with his car is still alive. Confident that the man is a Samaritan, he quickly runs to Cyrus to break the news.
As the town sings the news of Nemesis’s return, everyone is suspicious if Samaritan is also alive. Disgusted with the threatening announcement, Cyrus demands to meet Joe and sends his local thugs to bring him in. However, have you ever seen the hero of the movie get bogged down by the secondary bullies?
No sir! After fighting off the hooligans who came to bring him before leading him, Joe exposes himself to the world as the Samaritan. Someone who saves people from everyday adversities. At this point in the film, we are introduced to Sylvester Stallone as the noble superhero Samaritan, living a life of exile for the past 25 years.
Knowing that Joe Smith, aka Samaritan, can save the city, Sam warns him about Cyrus’ evil plans. However, Joe doesn’t want to be a part of anything to do with saving the city. Upset with his decision to leave town, Sam breaks into Joe’s apartment to look for the clock he said he would fix. Simultaneously, we see Cyrus fuming at how things are out of order. Not finding Joe at her apartment, she takes Sam with him as a captive.
Is Sylvester Stallone’s Joe Smith a good man?
After thinking things over and with a change of heart, Joe returns to Sam’s apartment, only to find Sam’s mother lying on the floor. He discovers that Cyrus has taken him hostage. Enraged for the well-being of his new friend, Joe finally decides to fight back and head to headquarters where Cyrus and his goons have taken Sam.
IMO at this point the movie felt flat with its ‘Rambo-Rocky Balboa’ punching action as Joe Smith fights everyone who showed up to stop him from screwing up Cyrus’ plan. Wearing the Nemesis mask and holding the superhero’s hammer, Cyrus repeatedly taunts Joe by calling him the good man, Samaritan.
However, the film quickly drifts. It takes us to a flashback of the fight sequence between the Samaritan and Nemesis; revealing to us in a twist that Sylvester Stallon’s Joe Smith is actually Nemesis, the evil (bad) twin of the two.
When Cyrus raises the hammer to hit Joe with it, Joe holds it up and admits that he is, after all, the evil brother everyone considers dead. Stunned by the impossible revelation (because Nemesis has always been his hero figure), Cyrus declares that they must all kill Joe.
As we see Joe in a poorly choreographed fight scene, trying to get past all the goons, Cyrus kidnaps Sam to lure Joe out (a similar sequence happened 25 years ago when Nemesis lured Samaritan into a fight). As his followers take over the city, destroying everything, Cyrus now emerges as the new Nemesis wearing his helmet and waits for Joe to fight him one on one.
Samaritan (2022) Movie ending, explained:
The end of Samaritan brings us to a perfect opportunity for Joe, or the real Nemesis, to make amends for his actions, namely for killing his brother many years ago. We can see that Nemesis has been hiding from the world with guilt, and can easily redeem herself by saving Cyrus. However, as much as the movie tries to make us believe that Nemesis is a different man, we see him killing Cyrus by throwing him into a fire.
When asked by Sam why he killed Cyrus, Joe replies that getting rid of bad people for doing bad things is easier. However, the truth is to make the right decision by following one’s heart because everyone has good and bad in them.
Realizing the reality that Joe mentioned, in a later interview, Sam states that it was Samaritan who showed up and saved him from the evil thugs. Seeing Sam from the other side in the audience, Joe walks away from the crowd, leaving us wondering if there was another story to redeem Nemesis now.
