Wouldn’t it be cool to be an actual Samaritan? Always looked to as an example; always assumed you’re the moral standard. I wonder what it’s like to be in a demographic that always gets the benefit of the doubt. Oh yeah, white guy. Huh. (Scratches head.) Never mind.
Seems there’s a rash of movie burglaries these days with the common M.O. of privacy invasion from valets; the cinema police should look into that. I’m not exactly sure where Hollywood got the idea that valets were the foot soldiers in a vast criminal conspiracy, but it’s out there now. Geez, you steal one guy’s address from his GPS to rob him blind over dinner and suddenly all valets are would-be felons.
This plot is not unclever … and gets to that magical place of justifiable paranoia. Never, never, never ever let your information guard down at any time, people. I’d rail against the constant human mistrust shown at the films these days except for the fact that unlike the immigrant Mexican murder/rapist fear promoted by opportunistic liars, identity theft is a genuine threat and you really should protect your personal information at all times. Hence, our nation of valets may just have to eat this one. Sorry, folks.
When Cale (David Tennant) pulls up in a Maserati, valets Sean (Robert Sheehan) and Derek (Carlito Olivero) feel like they’ve won the underworld lottery. And the fact that Cale is a condescending prick as well? Bingo! He deserves to get robbed. Sean wins the rock-paper-scissor-lympics and has the honor of thieving Cale’s house.
I honestly don’t see how this works, btw. Oh, I get the premise and sure, you could easily rob one (1) house through GPS homing device in this fashion. BUT, how do you get away with more than one? All it takes is one detective to ask, “Huh. You were out to dinner, too … at which restaurant?” And the odd commonalities would almost certainly lead to an arrest. I digress.
Sean discovers a number of things at Cale’s house – 1) The Maserati is not an aberration; Cale is loaded and his pristine, high-tech house reflects a large pocket-book. 2) Right on the counter, there’s a fresh multi-platinum card, not even activated. This is the biggest score of their year by itself. 3) And there’s also a chained-up woman in the surveillance room/business office. Oh, come now. Who puts a chained up captive in a room with a rug and leaves? That just doesn’t make any sense. What if she’s gotta go? You’re gonna have to replace an entire carpet and maybe even a whole set of wiring, not to mention explaining how this happened to the repair guys. Makes no sense.
Oh yeah, captive girl! This was some pretty good film-making. Unsatisfied with his golden ticket, Sean gets 
curious about the only locked room in the house. He jimmies the lock and finds a blacklit work area with a checkbook and several computer screens. While using the camera flash to take the picture of the checkbook, Sean illuminates the background where sits a gagged, big-eyed captive woman where only darkness was before. OK, movie, you have my attention. And Sean’s attention; he vows to give up his thieving ways on the spot to save the girl and thus become the Bad Samaritan.
It took some doing after that jolt to the system, but Bad Samaritan managed to lose my attention over the course of the next hour. While David Tennant was up to the challenge of psychotic kidnapper and Robert Sheehan proved likeable enough to follow, the plot gets sillier and sillier as the film wears on. What started as a decent horror ended with some impressively unconvincing police work and heroism. Yeah, maybe you didn’t flush your promise down the toilet all at once, Bad Samaritan, but my biggest take away from this film is, “Wha’ happen’?” Maybe next time, you avoid the chase, catch Tennant early and have a go of “Good Samaritan/Bad Samaritan” at the station to coerce a confession. It would probably amount to the same.
A valet student shutter bug thief
Decides to turn over his leaf
When he finds someone’s prey
He claims hero of the day
Only to discover several levels of grief
Rated R, 110 Minutes
Director: Dean Devlin
Writer: Brandon Boyce
Genre: Do the right thing … eventually
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Thriller junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Kidnappers
