The trailer for Bad Samaritan intrigued me, partially because of David Tennant, and also because I used to work as a valet. The possibility of how easy it would be to burgle a customer always came up in conversation among valets, mostly because home keys were almost always attached to people’s car keys, and also because we had a lot of free time to shoot the shit and come up with crazy ideas. Combining these two things together in a thriller assured I’d end up seeing it.

The valets in the movie do what my friends and I only speculated about, they use the GPS in people’s cars to find their homes, get inside with the keys, and take items that won’t be noticed right away. It’s a side gig with a lot of downside, especially if they get caught. Sean (played by Robert Sheehan from Mute, and Fortitude) and Derek (Carlito Olivero) have different ideas about who they should burgle, with Sean not wanting to target families, only douchebags. The tension mixed with the adrenaline rush are part of the reason these guys do this, which is perfectly illustrated when Derek breaks into a house, only for a Doberman to appear out of nowhere and ruin everything. Derek barely escapes getting bitten, but it seems like a walk in the park compared to what happens during Sean’s attempt.

Robert Sheehan plays Sean with a likable, charming Irish lilt. He’s an artist who’s just down on his luck, but his girlfriend Riley (Jacqueline Byers) knows there’s a bright future ahead of him as a photographer. Their relationship, as well as Sean’s friendship with Derek, are the most positive things going for Sean, but he’s about to lose them all after he chooses the wrong guy’s house to break into. The next customer who appears at their valet stand drives a Maserati, and is incredibly rude and condescending, so the guys instantly decide he’s their next victim. Sean hits the jackpot right away, stealing a credit card from a stack of mail in the house and activating it by using the man’s home phone. This should be enough to satisfy Sean, but it isn’t and he pushes farther into the house. He finds a very dark home office that seems to only contain a computer and a checkbook. It’s while taking a picture of the routing number on the checks that everything changes. In the light of the flash, Sean discovers a woman bound and gagged with chains and leather on the opposite side of the room.

David Tennant is always wonderful as a villain. Here he plays Cale Erendreich, a rich, trust fund asshole with a major chip on his shoulder, and a penchant for treating those below his social status like garbage. In flashbacks it’s teased that he killed a horse when he was a child, and has become obsessed with horses ever since. His home is littered with horse statues and images, and Katie (Kerry Condon, Better Call Saul, Rome), the woman he has tied up in his home has a bit in her mouth and is strapped in leather. I was hoping we’d get a Jessica Jones level psychopath, but what we get instead is an American accented, off kilter Tennant who’s obsessed with cleanliness, and appears to be a serial killer based on the kill room Sean finds in the garage while looking for a tool to help free Katie and save her.

Sean doesn’t have time to cut through the leather or break the chains that bind Katie in place before Cale needs his car back. Under pressure, Sean reluctantly leaves her with promises of getting the cops. The Bad Samaritan bit comes into play when Sean goes to the police and admits to what he saw while he was burglarizing Cale’s home. This isn’t Cale’s first go round when it comes to killing people, and paired with his “everything in its right place” OCD, he instantly knows something isn’t right when he gets home. Cale is somehow able to clean things up, move Katie to a secluded cabin, and remove all of the incriminating evidence before the cops get a chance to find the truth. He also knows about Sean and Derek because of surveillance cameras he has in his house, and surprise, surprise, is also master of identity theft who soon begins ruining Sean’s life. First by sabotaging Sean’s relationship with his girlfriend Riley, then causing him to lose his job, and quickly after targets Sean’s parents. The cops don’t believe Sean, and jokingly tell him to go to the FBI, so he does. This is where all credibility in the movie begins to disappear and the story starts falling apart. What once felt like a nice little thriller quickly unravels and feels poorly thought out, straight to video release from the 90’s. Whole plotlines disappear, and characters die or are severely beaten without ever entering into the storyline again. Sean’s parents find themselves in trouble at their jobs and go into hiding for the rest of the film, while Derek ends up a victim of Cale’s anger. The only bright spot is a woman at the FBI believes Sean’s tale, and it fits the profile of an illusive serial killer she’s been desperately trying to catch.

Nothing the film sets up in the first half seems to matter much anymore. The second half is filled with bad dialogue and clichéd set pieces. It’s too bad, because Bad Samaritan was entertaining to begin with. Between Sean somehow being able to find the remote cabin where Cale keeps Katie captive easier than the FBI, and a clichéd chase scene through the woods (that’s been done way too many films and television shows) with Cale on the heels of Sean and Katie, the ending couldn’t come quick enough. The worst part is that Condon, Sheehan, and Tennant’s performances are the only thing keeping the story afloat for the majority of the film, but even their gifted talents aren’t enough to keep them from being smothered by the dead weight of the final act of Bad Samaritan.

The film was written by Brandon Boyce (Apt Pupil, Wicker Park) and directed by Dean Devlin (Geostorm anyone?), who somehow pulled in three wonderful performers to anchor the film. I’m not sure if Bad Samaritan had a weak script to begin with (I couldn’t find it anywhere online) or if Devlin changed the story as he went along, but Bad Samaritan’s story just doesn’t gel. It had a lot of potential and really great actors, but the finished product felt like the quality of a straight to Netflix movie like The Cloverfield Paradox, which is to say, unfortunately not worth the investment of your time.