A Compelling Game of Cat-and-Mouse

The last movie directed by veteran producer Dean Devlin was last years’ disaster Geostorm. His next feature, a thriller called Bad Samaritan, is definitely a lot better.

Advertised as a home invasion horror film, Bad Samaritan has more in common with Cape Fear and The Silence of the Lambs than Don’t Breathe or The Purge. Though it certainly falls victim to some of the more contrived tropes of psychopath movies, it also takes some unexpected turns, keeps the tension engaging, and benefits from some really good acting.

Sean Falco (Robert Sheehan) is a photographer and artist making ends meet as a restaurant valet in Portland, Oregon. In a scheme with a friend, he routinely steals clients’ cars to rob their homes, but on one such occasion discovers a captive woman (Kerry Condon) chained up in the home of a rich equestrian (David Tennant). As Sean tries to alert authorities and free her, her detainer catches on, and turns the tables on him in increasingly elaborate, destructive ways.

This movie doesn’t start out very good. The dialogue is poor, the tone strangely whimsical, and the exposition almost laughably forced. Luckily this doesn’t last past the inciting discovery. The movie’s sense of urgency is one of its greatest assets, the suspense is terrific. It also allows its protagonist to be responsible, taking the right actions and attempting to do the noble thing. And any oversights he has are attributed to his fear in the moment, which is perfectly reasonable. The fact that he’s still a target of torment in spite of this makes the situation all the more tense. At the same time as he’s trying to cope, we see the crazed kidnapper remain ahead of the curve, anticipating Sean’s next moves and making pre-emptive strikes to if not subdue him, at least ruin his life. Some of these are a little too unbelievable though, and at times the character falls into a few too many sociopath genius traps. There’s one point especially that’s hard to take seriously at the end of the second act. The film also does a really good job building up his mystery, dropping specific details, character hints in his scenes with the girl through his behaviour and language, and occasionally an outside source. But ultimately the explanation for his backstory comes from ancillary characters rather quickly in the last act, almost in passing -and it’s not completely clear. The presentation is just really underwhelming for something that was significantly foreshadowed and given plenty of focus in regards to the villain’s attitude and violence.

Though his American accent is off, David Tennant is great. I like many, am a big fan of his run on Doctor Who, but I know that even though he played one of pop culture’s greatest heroes, he makes for terrific villains as well. And I don’t know if he’s ever played a more vile character than the calculating sadist of Bad Samaritan. He’s got a few truly frightening moments in this film and the right level of deranged menace. This movie’s also a great showcase for Robert Sheehan, who’s been one of Ireland’s most promising young actors since Misfits; and he gives a wonderful performance as the idealistic young man in over his head, shaken but compelled to help. His fellow Irish performer, Kerry Condon, also has more to her part than just merely being a victim, displaying great terror and confusion in a fairly demanding role. The strength of these performances, Tennant’s and Sheehan’s in particular, compensate and often even overcome the sub-par script. All the additional characters, including Sean’s girlfriend, his thieving partner and immigrant parents are played decently.

Devlin’s direction, though again, a huge improvement over Geostorm, is still not really good. A lot of the technicals are very mediocre and there’s some poor editing throughout. I also don’t think the movie needed a couple jump scare fake-outs. And the story on its own, though it has interesting moments, wouldn’t be near as good if not for the performances and a few well-executed sequences of suspense.

The title for this movie is odd. The allusion to the Biblical parable could apply to Sean going to such selfless lengths to help a woman he doesn’t know, but his character hardly denotes the term ‘bad’. If it’s referring to his adversary, and an inversion of the colloquialism, it might come from how much turmoil he inflicts upon Sean; but after breaking into his house, Sean isn’t really a stranger to him -a key aspect of the apologue. Despite a baiting title though, Bad Samaritan isn’t half-bad.

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