After seeing this psychological thriller, you may decide to skip valet parking and park the car yourself. You may also decide to lock the door between your garage and home. And to take your garage door opener with you when you leave your car. If you happen to be a valet-parking house thief like Sean Falco (Robert Sheehan) or Derek Sandoval (Carlitos Oliver), you just might want to find religion and a new line of work. For the next house you break into may belong to someone really nasty.
*** WARNING: This review contains spoilers***
And few can be nastier than Cale Erendreich (David Tennant of “Doctor Who” fame). Rich, smart and computer savvy, Cale’s habits are what you’d call sexually eccentric. And more than a “50 Shades Darker” way. Yep, he’s way past that. Ask his latest subject, Katie (Kerry Condon), who beats his head in with a shovel…actually, more about that later. Rewind to when Sean finds her gagged and tied to a chair, blood-soaked and still alive in Cale’s dark upstairs office. Another room reveals a Medical Examiner’s steel table with enough “tools” to perform an autopsy. I know, you’re thinking “Saw” or “Hostel” but this is so much better.
Director Dean Devlin, a ‘big picture’ auteur (“Godzilla,” “Independence Day”), scales things down here to concentrate on character and story. He draws on the talents of Tennant and Sheehan, creating a combustible mix of tension, white-knuckle terror and a bit of comedy. Tennant’s icy malevolence plays well against Sheehan’s panicky, grifter persona. And the tight script by Brandon Boyce has victim Katie, girlfriend Riley (Jacqueline Byers) and street-smart partner Derek pulling Sean in all directions.
Does Sean untie Katie? No. Cale is leaving the restaurant and wants his Maserati—the car Sean still has parked in Cale’s garage. The dialog is something you’d hear from “Happy Days'” the Fonz as panicky Derek screams at him: “We can’t get involved! We got rap sheets! Besides, you don’t want your girl to find out how you can afford all that crap.” (Sean’s girlfriend thinks he’s making ends meet as a talented photographer.) Which means poor Katie will have to wait a bit longer. But the good Samaritan in Sean begins to eke out when he anonymously calls the police. At this point, Cale’s devilishly clever persona kicks into high gear. For not only do the cops find nothing after a thorough house search, Cale is already planning to tie up two loose ends—Sean and Derek.
And this is where the fun starts, for Cale’s house is almost as intelligent as he is, with every remote and video feature you’ve ever seen in a “smart house” commercial. Sean and Derek are cerebrally outgunned at every turn, as Cale turns the tables, ruining their lives and the lives of those they love with the tech savvy of a CIA computer nerd. Watching this taut thriller, you’ll find yourself screaming at the screen: Don’t do that, get out, turn around, as Sean tries in vain to become a good Samaritan.
“Bad Samaritan” is a must see with a theater audience. There are laughs, screams, and other visceral reactions you’ll want to share. This includes violent scenes with baseball bats to the head and torso, skulls smashed with shovels, some gunplay, and people crawling out freshly dug graves.
It’s an oddly entertaining bit of escapism that pits wealthy ‘one-percenter’ Cale against the 99 percenters in the rest of the cast. What drives Cale to go after our hapless thieves with such tenacity? Who knows? A backstory about horses and a traumatic childhood hints at the need for payback against a joyless youth. But the point here is that we don’t need to understand Cale’s real motivations. We just want to watch him do his sadistic schtick. Rife with horror-flick cliches–like faux-terror jump scenes, dim lighting, and just-in-time escapes–“Bad Samaritan” is unnervingly entertaining.
As “Samaritan” winds down, Devlin knows when audiences have had enough of Cale, which is why he finally has Sean turn the tables on him. It’s a gut-satisfying bit of tech wizardry our young car thief uses to catch Cale off guard. And it finally endears Sean to an audience that, until now, regarded him as a pothead with a girlfriend that’s too good for him.
“Bad Samaritan” is a nail-biter almost from the start, an E-ticket ride with a villain that undulates from smart to sick. It’s a cerebral thriller with more twists than that pretzel you bought at the concession counter. See it with a friend. And don’t use valet parking.
Check out the trailer.
Alex A. Kecskes is a published author of "Healer a Novel" and "The Search for Dr. Noble"—both now available on Amazon. He has written hundreds of film reviews and celebrity interviews for a wide variety of online and print outlets. He has covered red carpet premieres and Comic-Con events for major films and independent releases.
