Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

The Samaritan isn't a great noir, but it's true to the tradition and gives Samuel L. Jackson one of his best recent roles.

The Hollywood Reporter by Michael Rechtshaffen

A gritty serving of pulp fiction masterfully perpetrated by Samuel L. Jackson as a philosophical ex-con trying to buck the considerable odds by taking a shot at redemption.

Movieline

Svelte enough in its reassembling of familiar elements to be, for a while, as comfortably pleasant as sipping on what once used to be your go-to drink - until The Samaritan takes a jarring turn right out of Park Chan-wook, and from there takes a tumble into ludicrousness from which it doesn't recover.

Chicago Reader

An odd stylistic mash-up, the movie never quite coheres, in part because the characters are so thin that the style doesn't have much to cohere to.

Variety by Robert Koehler

If anything, this Canadian production misses a great opportunity to dig into its setting and examine the dark side of seemingly pristine Toronto, even as the script by Elan Mastai and director David Weaver labors over a mostly boilerplate storyline.

The A.V. Club by Sam Adams

It's difficult to describe The Samaritan, in which Samuel L. Jackson plays an ex-con trying to return to the straight and narrow after 25 years inside, without overlapping a dozen other movies in his nigh-endless filmography, nor watch any scene without thinking of how many times he's drawn from the same bag of tricks.

The Guardian by Andrew Pulver

A clotted, knotted, twisty noir that is, unfortunately, short on the required atmosphere.

Village Voice by Nick Schager

Weaver's story slowly begins to buckle under the weight of its own self-seriousness and familiarity, concluding with a showdown and resolution marked by one implausible and unsatisfying been-here-done-that twist after another.

New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman

The most charitable approach to this unfortunate diversion in Jackson's career would be to pretend it never happened. Now, who wants to go see "The Avengers" again?

Time Out by Eric Hynes

No one expects a Samuel L. Jackson thriller to be Shakespeare, but David Weaver's wanna-be '70s-grindhouse cheapie doesn't even achieve serviceability.