Beckett

Director: Ferdinando Cito Filomarino
Starring: John David Washington, Alicia Vikander, Boyd Holbrook, Vicky Krieps, Maria Votti, Panos Koronis, Lena Kitsopoulou
Running Time: 108 min.
Rating: R 

★★★ (out of ★★★★)  

Tightly wound and consistently suspenseful, Netflix's political conspiracy thriller, Beckett is bit better than it first appears, wringing genuine tension from the familiar premise of an ordinary man facing insurmountable circumstances. In certain ways, it starts out recalling something along the lines of 2010's The American in terms of tone and style before taking a more action-oriented turn that ups the excitement and violence level. In this case, the American in question is an innocent vacationer rather than a contracted killer, even as he inches closer to the latter by film's end. 

Having already acclimated himself nicely as the quintessential man on the run in Christopher Nolan's Tenet, this is the kind of role John David Washington has already proven to excel at. Here, he plays a man helplessly spiraling into imminent danger after making one horrible mistake that sets off a chain of almost inhumanly bad luck. Having to readjust quickly, he proves more formidable and resourceful than expected, as director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino tries his best to recreate the kind of old school, paranoid atmosphere prevalent in '70's pictures like The Parallax View, with decidely more mixed results.  

U.S. Tourist Beckett (Washington) is vactioning in Greece with girlfriend April (Alicia Vikander) when the two decide to leave their hotel in Athens due to nearby protesting. But when Beckett falls asleep at the wheel, veering off the road and crashing into a nearby house, April is killed immediately. Badly injured and trapped in the car, Beckett can make out a boy being accompanied out of the house by an unknown blonde woman (Lena Kitsopoulou) before he wakes up in the hospital the next day. 

After Beckett gives his statement to the Officer Xenakis (Panos Koronis) at the station, he returns to the accident scene, only to get followed and shot at. Running for his life with these assailants on his trail, Beckett needs to find a way to get to the U.S. embassy in Athens, relying primarily on the help of political activists Lena (Vicky Krieps) and Eleni (Maria Votti). With the truth behind why he's being hunted still unclear, Beckett must come to grips with his own fatal mistake while attempting to escape a dangerous web of deceit and corruption that cuts to the core of the country's unrest. 

With a premise and opening half hour that teases a Hitchcockian puzzlebox, it starts becoming clear later that there just isn't enough style and substance present for it to truly earn such a lofty comparison. That's fine, as few can, bit it does settle into more conventional action territory as Kevin Rice's script fleshes itself out, leaking morsels of information as Beckett deals with one complication after the next in his mission to find safety. But what he really wants is only to get his deceased girlfriend's body returned to the states so that this nightmare can end.

Beckett's guilt and anger over April's death seems to be his primary driving force, which is ironic considering the car accident doesn't have as much to do with the actual conspiracy as you'd think, at least directly. But does this guy ever take a beating, from getting shot, jumping off cliffs to getting stabbed, you could be fooled into thinking this is an unannounced Superman sequel. But because the story follows a clear trajectory of events and Washington's so effective at selling the anguish and frustration over his plight, it at least clears the low action movie threshold necessary for us to temporarily suspend disbelief.

Compared with Washington, Alicia Vikander's role as the doomed April is minor, her performance playing better in hindsight once the fallout following the character's death is fully accessed by film's end. That said, the two actors have very little chemistry as a couple and some of their early small talk is insufferable, putting a damper on the proceedings right out of the gate. Curiously missing in action since her breakthrough in 2017's Phantom Thread, Vicky Krieps turns in solid supporting work as the headstrong, but skeptical activist faced with the dilemma of whether to trust a desperate, volatile stranger. Boyd Holbrook also memorably appears as a U.S. embassy employee Beckett is forced to rely on if he has any hopes of extracting himself from this mess.  

It's up for debate whether the final explanation of events lives up to the action preceding it, but the creative execution mostly delivers, as the script's clarity and cleanliness is appreciated in a time when movies of this ilk pile contrivances on top of contrivances to get where it needs to go. There may be moments of that going on, but not an egregious, empty-headed amount, making it easier to become invested in the outcome. Revolving around a somewhat sympathetic protagonist in the wrong place at the wrong time, Filomarino holds our attention by using all the reliable tricks a throwback potboiler should. Beckett doesn't reinvent the wheel, but adequately accomplishes what's needed, making it more than worth a watch.