TV Review - Good Sam (2019)

This film is listed as a drama, but it's closer to the recent romantic comedies that Netflix has distributed in abundance over the past year or two. Like most of them, it centers around a woman having to choose between two men. I feel like the better films don't present these binary choices because usually they end with a situation where things are dragged out until it's obvious that one of the choices is either evil or has made an irrevocable mistake. It's rare that a romantic movie will present two equally good or two equally worthy choices for someone. This movie though doesn't do that great of a job of concealing the dichotomy between the two choices here.  Where the woman is going to end up is obvious from the jump. There's no real tension or thrills in that regard. Based on the book by Dete Meserve, the movie instead tries to build tension or thrills with a bit of a mystery.

Tiya Sircar (Alex, Inc. and The Good Place) stars as Kate Bradley, a TV news reporter in New York City who prefers to chase breaking news like fires or crime stories. Her father is a politician and he'd rather his daughter do stories on politics, which he perceives as safer. She does have a habit of running into danger in order to get the story or specifically to get the video, even though she has a loyal cameraman with her. Her boss doesn't appreciate her bravado, so she's assigned to do human-interest stories instead.

When a person reports having a bag of cash totaling $100,000 laid on their doorstep, Kate is told to do the story, even though she doesn't want to do it. She reluctantly does so. When three other people also report having a bag of cash in the same amount, she then becomes highly interested and wants to know who the mysterious person is that's given out nearly a half-million dollars. She dubs this mysterious person the "Good Samaritan." This becomes the thrust of the film. She tries to figure out who the source of the money is. She comes across two suspects.

Chad Connell co-stars as Eric Hayes, a firefighter who runs into Kate while she's covering a fire. The reason that Kate suspects him is because he's the only connection between a few of the people who received the money. His brother recently passed away in a sailboat accident. Eric's brother was a real estate agent who found or was responsible for the homes of a few of the people who received the money. As a firefighter, he has a tendency to want to help or save people. He's selfless and very humble. He seems like an absolute angel.

He's also quite gorgeous-looking. Kate is a bit smitten and a bit attracted to him. She's certainly interested in dating him. Her obvious favoring of him is one that is easy to guess. What Kate can't quite believe is that there is someone who could give something, especially something as nearly a half-million and not expect anything in return. Her reason for pursuing the mystery is to prove that whoever is giving the money is doing so for some ulterior motive. She operates under the suspicion that the kind of person who would do that could not possibly exist. It's a cynicism and secularism in Kate that isn't ever really examined.

Marco Grazzini also co-stars as Jack Hansen, a hedge fund manager who knows Kate's father. Unlike Eric, he's not playing hard-to-get. He's more pursuing Kate. She resists because she doesn't like politics and Jack is in the political world. She wants to keep a wall between people in her father's life and people in hers. He's young and handsome. He's also smart and can be charming. She suspects that he's the Good Samaritan after more money is dropped off on people's doorsteps and the trail leads back to Jack.

While Kate is determining whether Jack is the actual Good Samaritan, there's this underlining idea that giving the money is what inspires people to help others. This Good Samaritan thing is then supposed to be an epidemic. The virtue is that the originator remains unknown. The anonymity is contingent for the charity and it adds more value to the charity somehow. In that, it seems like the movie should have ended with Kate never learning the true identity of the Good Samaritan.

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!

The movie eventually does reveal the identity of the Good Samaritan. Yet, there's something the movie fails to recognize. The first is that a firefighter is already a Good Samaritan. He doesn't need to give out nearly a half-million dollars to be a Good Samaritan. The movie therefore argues that if not for the money, he wouldn't have been able to inspire charity, which I think is a fallacy. Maybe, the movie's position is that firefighters aren't Samaritans because they do get some kind of paycheck. The movie also values his anonymity from the people who got the money. He believes if the recipients know who he is, it would burden them. Yet, the money was also gifted to the Samaritan and the same isn't true for himself.

Also, the movie clearly wants to bash this one particular, young politician. The politician does exactly what the Good Samaritan wants, which is inspiring people to help others. Kate is the one that adds the proviso that a Good Samaritan can't want something in return or he can't expect something in return. It would be one thing to demand or insist for something in return, but having an expectation of such isn't as morally reprehensible as it seems to be painted. It depends on what's done afterward. Yet, a politician wanting to get elected into office is apparently the ultimate evil here. There is no examination of his policies and the things he would do in office that could essentially help more people than even a singular firefighter could. No, instead the politician is dismissed outright, which is yet another failing of the movie.

Rated TV-PG.
Running Time:  1 hr. and 30 mins.

Available on Netflix.