Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Beckett’ on Netflix, a Solid Hitchcock-Style Wrong-Man Thriller Starring John David Washington

Netflix thriller Beckett lines up some serious burgeoning talent in director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino — a protege of sorts of Luca Guadagnino — star John David “Son of Denzel” Washington and supporting stars Alicia Vikander and Vicky Krieps (whose career has been shockingly low-profile since Phantom Thread). The film digs into some heavy Wrong Man tropes as Washington’s character scampers and limps and clambers through rural and urban Greece; now let’s see if any of it sticks or if it just zips on by us.

BECKETT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Beckett (Washington) and April (Vikander) are spooning. They seem to have had a tiff but are past the make-up sex part of the fight, and are ready for round two, so their vacation in Greece isn’t ruined. But the scenery is, as they sightsee in a mist-shrouded rural locale where ancient people once lived, then dine at a restaurant, where they make eyes at each other and chat and allow us into their hearts a little bit. They had been staying in Athens, but the onset of noisy political protests prompted them to find a place to stay outside the city, and they’re driving along a dark country road at night and April dozes off and then so does Beckett and the car skids and tumbles down an embankment and flips over and smashes through the wall of a house.

Bleary, Beckett crawls from the wreck, sees April laying in a pool of blood, spots a redheaded boy and then blacks out. He awakens in a hospital. The language barrier is a problem. April is dead; so much for this being a Vikander movie. He answers a cop’s probing questions. The cop says nobody was living in the house — curious, because Beckett saw someone. He drags his arm in a cast and his guilt out to the crash site and considers swallowing his entire allotment of Ambien when a woman fires bullets at him, like from a gun. What gives? He runs; a bullet rips through his upper arm. The probing cop? Also shooting at him. Something’s not right.

Good thing Beckett’s willing to do some stupid shit, like leap off a not-too-tall-but-tall-enough cliff, to avoid being killed. He makes his way through the countryside, comes across a trio of kind hunters who help him, a pair of even more kind beekeepers, and eventually the kindest of all, a couple of activists involved with the aforementioned protests. The activists are putting up posters bearing the visage of the redheaded boy — yes, the same redheaded boy, now officially The Redheaded Boy — who’s the kidnapped nephew of a leftist political leader. Yes: THINKY GUY EMOJI. No wonder the bad guys are so intent on finding Beckett, who keeps being found, perhaps inexplicably, if you think about it too much. But it helps that he’s also remarkably adept at escaping. Not bad for a software salesman from the States, eh?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Beckett is The Fugitive run through a Hitchcock filter — think North by Northwest — and with the unlikely-hero-isms of Die Hard protagonist John McClane.

Performance Worth Watching: Washington is capably earnest here, and although he pounds on one of his attackers until highly convincing strings of drool hang from his foaming mouth, the character’s regular-guy-finds-his-heroic/survivalist-streak arc is unexceptional, boilerplate stuff. It’s Krieps, as one of the activists, who makes the most of her limited screen time, her character showing a compassionate streak that overrides some of the plot’s implausibilities (such as, why should anyone believe this guy isn’t a nut?).

Memorable Dialogue: “I’m having a love attack,” Beckett says to April as they make goo-goo eyes at the dinner table, which sure sounds like a portent of tragedy

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: If Beckett’s plot is a piece of fabric, it’s stretched taut for the first half and starts coming apart at the seams in the second. I guess Beckett is sincere enough in his pleadings that people believe he’s the victim of an eyeroller of a conspiracy, and Filomarino — who developed the story, scripted by Kevin A. Rice — layers in some flimsy political implications that give the film the illusion of ambition. The director maybe wants to dig into the State of Things, but seems tentative; the movie would probably be better as a stripped-down B-movie thriller, delivered with enough of a nudge and a wink to better suspend our disbelief.

But those stripped-down B-movie thriller elements work just well enough that my criticisms aren’t dealbreakers. It’s not a breathless pursuit, but a reasonably paced one, drawn out to generate suspense rather than an artificial sense of uptempo excitement. I was charmed by its adherence to foot chases; it noticeably avoids the stuff of screeching car tires and other tiresome cliches, and there’s a slyly funny moment in which Beckett tries to hijack a civilian’s moped, but loses the fight. It’s also amusing how Beckett gets more wounded and bandaged as the movie progresses and he limps and hobbles and sucks up the pain, his handicap escalating and his adrenaline coursing faster as he eludes the bad guys.

Despite her why-bother role, Vikander finds enough intimate chemistry with Washington for Beckett’s broken heart to resonate throughout the film, and Krieps’ character work is strong even though the screenplay clearly isn’t all that interested in her. There’s enough of a sentimental streak to go with the palpable paranoia and who-can-he-trust tension to keep the film afloat. I don’t think I ever truly bought what was happening, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Beckett boasts just enough excitement and suspense to overcome its flaws and make it worth a watch.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Beckett on Netflix