Film Review: Beckett

Beckett is a thriller from Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, marking his directorial debut after doing second unit work on numerous Luca Guadagnino projects for the past several years. Guadagnino also serves as a producer on this. Written by Kevin A. Rice, the film is very much a classic man-on-the-run picture, starting off pleasantly enough with an American couple, Beckett (John David Washington) and April (Alicia Vikander), vacationing in Greece. Things take a tragic turn when a car accident kills April, leaving Beckett injured and all alone in the country. However, things go from bad to worse when he suddenly being chased by the police, seemingly out for blood.

Confused by the situation and made desperate by the circumstances, Beckett is forced to use his wits to survive as he tries to make his way to the embassy. Complicating the matter further is when he learns about the kidnapping of a nephew to a famous politician, and the boy is the very same that he saw a glimpse of in the immediate of the crash. He does eventually find help in two activists, Lena (Vicky Krieps) and Eleni (Maria Votti), who also provide further context regarding the political tensions that are currently happening that might explain Beckett’s situation.

The film brings to mind a lot of entries of this subgenre like The Fugitive, Three Days Of The Condor, and Hitchcock classics like North By Northwest and The 39 Steps. Rice’s script and Filomarino’s direction largely have pretty good instincts with how they tackle the genre. It is meticulous in how it reveals information, and uses that for maximum tension. You never know who to trust, no location is safe for too long, and it places complication on top of complication as it goes along. For the most part, it’s pretty effective at what it’s trying to do.

A film like this ride and dies on its lead, and John David Washington certainly puts everything he can into the role. I like that he is treated like some average guy with no real fighting skills, often relying on luck and goodwill from strangers to get by, he makes mistakes, he’s sloppy, it’s all good on paper. However, Washington is a bit inconsistent, sometimes the emotional beats hit well, but when he gets more and more involved in the conspiracy, there is something lacking. There isn’t much to his character beyond the brief moments of introspection, especially the grief behind April’s loss. We don’t really get to know him beyond his experience here, his motivations get more muddled in the second half, and the film’s insistence of keeping things serious results in a dry performance overall. He’s not bad, but he’s no Cary Grant, that’s for sure.

From a technical standpoint, there’s a lot to like. It’s shot by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom on 35 mm, and he gives it a lush look with rich colors, with great use of its Greek environments and cities. The score is from Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose presence is largely subtle aside from a few moments, but it’s in those moments where the music really pushes things to a great level. The pacing is solid, the little bit of action is suspenseful and grounded in its approach. It’s never visually uninteresting.

If there are any general drawbacks to Beckett, it’s mostly in how it doesn’t necessarily do anything that hasn’t already been seen in this particular kind of movie many times before. The surprises are few and far between, and the conspiracy that Beckett gets involved in is pretty much kept at a distance and not very involving. It doesn’t offer much to get invested when you do find out what’s going on, and you just have to roll with it. It’s not a film I would find myself revisiting, but I still think it’s a good movie as a whole, with a serviceable enough lead, and plenty of solid craftsmanship to warrant further interest in seeing where Ferdinando Cito Filomarino goes from here.

Beckett is now out on Netflix.