TOURIST TRAP (BECKETT)

 

As Netflix has become a major player in the movie industry, there has been a suspicion that it has also been a bit of a dumping ground for wobbly indie films or work that the traditional studios have lost faith in.

Netflix's record when it comes to movies has been patchy to say the least.

For every gem like 'The White Tiger' or 'Roma' there's a dud like 'The Week Of' or 'The Cloverfield Paradox'.

Italian director Ferdinando Cito Filamarino's 'Beckett' sits somewhere in between - a so-so conspiracy thriller with John David Washington in the lead.

Filamarino's film is part of that thriller genre where bad things happen to Americans abroad.

Think of Harrison Ford huffing and puffing his way around Paris in Roman Polanski's 'Frantic' or Liam Neeson discovering after a car crash in Berlin in 'Unknown' that the life he had isn't what he thought it was.

At the start of 'Beckett,' John David Washington's eponymous hero and his girlfriend Alicia Vikander's April Hanson are mooching about on holiday in North Greece.

The couple goof around while touring ancient ruins, making up stories about their fellow tourists.

Driving late at night, tragedy hits them when Beckett falls asleep at the wheel of their hired car and it veers off the road, crashing into the wall of a house.

April is flung out of the vehicle.

Hanging upside down in the overturned vehicle, Beckett spots a young boy and a woman who quickly disappear the scene.

The glimpse he catches of them doesn't feel right, as if the boy is being held captive.

Eventually the emergency services arrive and Beckett wakes up in hospital and is told April has died.

When the police arrive and take him to the station to make arrangements for the return of April's body to the US, he describes what happened.

Panos Koronis' Officer Xenakis is deeply sceptical when Beckett tells him about the woman and child and plays it down.

There's an emotional phone call with April's father Bob, played by Michael Stuhlbarg who we never see but hear on the end of the phone, in which Beckett hasn't the heart to tell him his daughter has died and gives the impression she is fighting for her life.

While waiting in his hotel for a trip back to Athens with her body, Beckett decides to go for a walk but is still in a bit of a daze.

He wanders to the house where he crashed the car.

However he is opened fire upon by Lena Kitsopoulou's mysterious gunwoman and when Officer Xenakis arrives on the scene, he also tries to shoot at him.

Fleeing the scene, Beckett realises he must have stumbled on something sensitive as Xenakis and a gang of thugs relentlessly pursue him on foot, by rail and car, killing anyone who helps him.

Trying to get to safety in the US Embassy in Athens, Beckett falls in with Vicky Krieps' activist Lena and Maria Votti's Eleni, realising the boy he saw is the kidnapped son of a left wing Greek politician.

Heading to Athens, he must avoid capture by corrupt Greek police officers who, Lena believes, may be in league with a fascist group and turns to Boyd Holbrook's US Embassy official Tynan for help.

However Tynan has a different narrative, telling Beckett the boy was kidnapped by communists.

Will he discover the truth?

Will the boy ever be found?

Will Beckett get out of Greece alive?

Unfortunately, when you are bombarded by these questions, you barely care.

Working from a lumpy script by Kevin A Rice with Luca Guadagnino on board as a producer, Filomarino delivers a rather stodgy thriller that takes its time to get going and never feels fully formed.

Rice's script has promise but it feels underdeveloped. 

The idea of an out of shape, everyman hero somehow evading capture while not being physically cut out for the challenges he faces has been done before but that's not to say, it couldn't work again.

Indeed, 'Beckett' will remind some people of 'North By Northwest' and 'The Fugitive,' as well as 'Frantic' and 'Unknown'.

The political elements are also reminiscent of the paranoid conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s like 'The Parallax View,' 'Winter Kills' and 'Three Days of the Condor'.

However it isn't a match for any of these classic thrillers 

Filomarino's film is just too leaden footed and half hearted to make you really care.

It very rarely offers thrills.

Washington is an appealing enough lead but is saddled with a stodgy script that requires him to hobble about a lot after he gets shot, punched and stabbed.

Koronis does a decent enough job as a villain and Holbrook keeps you guessing about his intentions.

Krieps and Votti go through the motions as the political activists Beckett falls in with, while Vikander is badly served in the first chapter of the film with by the book dialogue that struggles to resonate because the writing seems so undercooked.

Flatly shot by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, 'Beckett' ambles along rather than grabbing its audience by the throat like the Jason Bourne movies or a good Liam Neeson thriller.

It feels unsure of itself, as if Filomarino doesn't quite know if he wants to pitch it as an out and out action thriller or an arthouse political drama.

By the time you get to the preposterous climactic stunt, you are left asking "Is that it?"

There's nothing really to see here, ladies and gentlemen. 

Please move along.

('Beckett' received its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival on August 4, 2021 and was released for streaming on Netflix on August 13, 2021)

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