beckett movie reviews

"Beckett" wants to be one of those paranoid thrillers from the 1970s, where the hero finds himself in an untenable situation surrounded by those he cannot trust. Films like " The Parallax View " and " Three Days of the Condor " immediately spring to mind as examples. If you value your time, you'll go for one of those instead of this uninvolving hash made with international politics, corrupt government officials, kidnapping, and incredulous last-reel heroics. Because it's on Netflix, you may be more forgiving than if you paid 20 bucks to see this in a theater. However, you'll eventually be tempted to see what else is available besides director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino 's English-language debut. 

John David Washington plays Beckett, an American traveling the backroads of Greece with his girlfriend, April ( Alicia Vikander ). These two have absolutely no chemistry onscreen, despite "Beckett" opening with them in bed together. Their idea of fun is looking at strangers and creating backstories for them. "Your stories always turn sleazy," Beckett tells her. It's the only thing we learn about April. The duo is touring the more remote, rocky parts of Greece after being warned that a protest would be occurring outside their Athens hotel. April scolds Beckett for being irresponsible for not calling the bed and breakfast where they'll be staying in the boondocks. This is all we'll learn about him.

If you didn't know "Beckett" was a thriller, you'd think it was about two mismatched people with dry interests, mundane conversations, and zero attraction. The thriller elements kick in when Beckett falls asleep at the wheel and runs off the road, killing April and injuring himself in the process. The car flies through an abandoned house as well before stopping. As he's trying to escape his vehicle, Beckett thinks he sees a woman and a red-headed preteen. When he speaks to them, begging for help, they suddenly disappear. Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom shoots this as if it may be a trauma-related hallucination, so we're not sure if our eyes are to be trusted. When cops start posing questions about the accident, the situation gets serious. Danger and violence become imminent; Filomarino keeps the pacing uneven and his protagonist uninteresting.

Writer Kevin A. Rice plays up the language barrier issues nicely—they're the only suspenseful moments because the Greek remain untranslated. We're as helpless as Beckett, who probably should have learned some basic Greek before embarking on this journey. Whenever someone who can speak English reverts to their native tongue, the film bristles with a sinister paranoia. Far more sinister are the two people, a bearded male cop and a blonde woman, who inexplicably start shooting at Beckett when they find he has returned to the scene of his accident. In the melee, he's shot. This will not be the last bullet to pierce through our protagonist while he's on the run.

"Beckett" does nothing with the notion that a Black man would stick out like a sore thumb in rural Greece. Instead, it keeps him running while introducing the aforementioned political plot-line. The protest march under that hotel in Athens has something to do with Karras ( Yorgos Pirpassopoulos ), the newly elected leader rumored to have a shady past. Later, Beckett will team up briefly with two activists, Eleni ( Maria Votti ) and Lena ( Vicky Krieps ), who are headed into town to attend that rally. By this point, numerous acts of violence have been perpetrated on the poor guy, including beatings and falls from great heights. By the closing credits, he will also be stabbed, slashed, and shot (again and again). In the film's most ridiculous moment, he jumps several stories to land on a moving car exiting a parking garage.

Through all this carnage, Beckett remains an enigma, and a very dull one at that. Even the violent scenes feel half-hearted. Washington doesn't click with anybody onscreen; he plays Beckett so blandly that it becomes a chore watching him. Maybe it's the roles he's had lately, but I remain stunned by how forgettable this actor has been in a leading role. From the resentful "Malcolm and Marie" to Christopher Nolan 's " Tenet ," he hasn't done anything on the big screen as sharp, charismatic, and dangerous as he was in " BlacKkKlansman ." (TV is another matter, as he's quite good on "Ballers.") Filomarino keeps Beckett running for his life, but we have no incentive to care whether he'll live or die.

We do know Beckett can hardly take the risk of trusting someone, even if his situation is so dire that he has to rely on the kindness of strangers. But if you've seen any early-1970s thriller, you can easily guess who'll be the turncoats and who'll be the allies. "Beckett" made me wish its titular hero had seen them, too. They not only would have told him who to trust, they would have shown him what a compelling main character looked like as well.

Now playing on Netflix.

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire  here .

• John David Washington as Beckett
• Alicia Vikander as April
• Vicky Krieps as Lena
• Boyd Holbrook as Tynan
• Daphne Alexander as Thalia Symons
• Panos Koronis as Xenakis
• Ferdinando Cito Filomarino

Writer (story by)

• Kevin A. Rice
• Ryuichi Sakamoto

Cinematographer

• Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
• Walter Fasano

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John David Washington Is a Regular Man on the Run in ‘Beckett’

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

Have you ever accidentally stumbled or — in the case of the titular hero of Netflix ’s Beckett — careened downhill, by way of a fatal car accident, into an international political scandal? Some things only happen to people in movies. What’s curious and invigorating, but also somewhat flawed, about Beckett is the way it maneuvers its path through the fate and psychological tumult of its central character, a man thrown into a whirlwind of grief that coincides with his accidental involvement in a scandal he knows nothing about, set in a country where he does not speak the language, and where the ostensible allies at his disposal are both far out of reach and, even when he reaches them, hardly as trustworthy as he would hope. The premise is ripe; the thrills are rich; the payoff doesn’t come together quite as easily as the rest.

But much of what’s here is good — more interesting for verging on the ridiculous, giving us a man whose motivations make most sense when you remember what must be going on in his head. The movie stars John David Washington as Beckett, an American tourist on vacation in Greece with his girlfriend, April ( Alicia Vikander ). Suffice it to say: something terrible happens. And in the midst of that horror, Beckett gets a glimpse of something — someone — that he shouldn’t, will indeed soon wish that he hadn’t. Beckett and April’s restful vacation happens to overlap with a country’s harrowing political unrest, spurred, most immediately, by the kidnapping of a major political figure’s nephew. It is a grave political situation, as Beckett discovers over time, one thought to be incited by a far-right nationalist party that has ties to, among other institutions, the police. Soon, because of what he’s seen, Beckett is a man on the run from exactly the authorities he would need to make his way out of this maze. Who he can trust, where he will go: all, for a time, linger as open questions. So, this is a movie with a mix of situations at play, overlapping and competing for our and Beckett’s attention. A title hero nearly undone by, not only grief, but overwhelming guilt; a regular man fashioned into a man on the run and, in important ways, completely in the dark; a stranger in a strange land, where the citizens he’s forced to lean on for aid wind up paying the price for their assistance, and where the political situation hovering on all sides feels much larger than any one person can comprehend. It’s a role that begs for a go-for-broke performance from an actor we can believe in, and Washington — a good actor — is charged with hitting a wide range of notes, almost akin to a classic Hitchcock hero. He’s got to be weary, confused, suspicious of most anyone he encounters — and director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino makes good on that weariness with canny reaction shots and moments, many of them subtle, in which Beckett takes a breather and all the tiredness grows in. But there’s another streak, a somewhat erratic throughline, coursing through the movie and Washington’s performance, too. Beckett has an injured arm throughout most of the movie, and yet there doesn’t seem to be a ledge that the man won’t jump off of: At one point he steps over the railing of a parking garage, and you can’t help but think, Oh, God. It feels completely irrational, like watching a regular guy — hardly your typical action hero; not a man who exactly jumps off of bridges and over rocky cliffs with anything like grace —  suddenly get a bug to enact a death wish. In the name of what, becomes a question. Grief emerges as the primary answer. But there’s that whole political angle to grab ahold of, and on this front Beckett proves mystifying, unsatisfying, even as this is always what allows for a pair of great supporting performances: by Vicky Krieps, as earth-angel and political activist Lena, and by Boyd Holbrook, as an employee at the U.S. embassy in Athens who — well, let’s simply say that he catches more than a couple of Washington’s sidelong suspicious glances. Filomarino — who has to this date primarily worked as the second unit director for Call Me By Your Name auteur Luca Guadagnino — makes good on these actors’ qualities, on our instinctive trust and distrust. Beckett isn’t the director’s feature debut, but the movie has the rattling curiosity and excitability of one. The movie flies along, risks the ridiculous, doesn’t entirely add up, but also proves sharp in some of its observations, as during one great scene in which Beckett stumbles off of a train onto a platform and, trusting no one, is palpably overwhelmed by a sense of, Now what ?

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The film’s original title was Born to Be Murdered . I’m glad they changed it — the “born to be” vibe doesn’t quite square, on the surface, with a central characterization more akin to a life thrown in flux by unexpected error and immeasurable grief. It’s true, on the other hand, that there’s a thin underlayer of fate, of a disruptive destiny, lurking just under the skin of everything that happens — a sense of how things might have turned out differently if only Beckett and April had stuck to their original plans, rather than veering off course into the unexpected. The movie doesn’t quite make the most of this idea’s power, nor of any of what feel like its bigger ideas. But when its nose is to the ground — when Beckett is speeding along, trying to make sense of this world — it works, and it works well.

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

Where to stream:.

• Stream It Or Skip It

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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.

Will you stream or skip the Hitchcockian thriller #Beckett on @netflix ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) August 15, 2021

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

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Review: John David Washington’s ‘Beckett’ character belongs in a drama, but finds himself in a thriller

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The first clue that the John David Washington starrer “Beckett” is not a typical thriller is that its director is ... Ferdinando Cito Filomarino.

That name might not ring a bell, but the Italian Filomarino (great-nephew of Luchino Visconti ) was the second-unit director for Luca Guadagnino films including “ Call Me By Your Name ,” and Guadagnino is a producer on “Beckett.” So despite its genre and big-name stars — Washington and Alicia Vikander — Filomarino’s second feature has the texture, atmosphere and attention to character of a small European film, rather than the one-liners and physics-defying action of a big-budget popcorn movie. By the way, it’s also suspenseful and involving.

The titular Beckett is an American on vacation in Greece with his beloved girlfriend, April (Vikander). Pure chance throws the business systems integration specialist into a situation he couldn’t have dreamed possible. The rest of “Beckett” is a tense manhunt story, with the tourist desperately scrambling in a strange land where he can’t hide in plain sight. He’s Black in a country in which virtually no one looks like him, he doesn’t speak the language and his wounds are difficult to disguise.

It’s a ‘70s paranoia movie in the best sense. And this is no hackneyed tribute; it’s complex, murky, propulsive. In that genre’s tradition, it pings off recent political events , though the specifics would be a spoiler to discuss (the trailer , should you choose to view it, does contain spoilers). Suffice to say it’s the classic scenario of an ordinary person in way over his head: We share Beckett’s confusion as he runs for his life, trying to figure out which end is up.

Knowing this is a thriller, the opening scenes — a leisurely stroll through this couple’s relationship — might seem out of place , but it’s the right setting for this everyman. He might actually envision his life as an easygoing romantic drama (or perhaps comedy). That he’s thrown into a nonstop chase with his life at stake is as crazy to him as it would be to any of us (apologies to anyone practicing evasive parkour and stoically taking bullets in the extremities on the daily).

Beckett is no superhero. He’s intelligent but makes mistakes. He gets hurt. The fights and flights are admirably sloppy — no one here is a crack shot, there aren’t any spinning roundhouse kicks . The action is painfully real (perhaps with one exception, though even then, to achieve an emotional truth).

“Beckett” takes a welcome step back from the pace and volume that today’s thrillers consider baseline. The story and chase never stop moving, but not at breakneck speed. Filomarino lets in the beauty of Greece. He pauses to appreciate a one-eyed cat. Oscar winner Ryuichi Sakamoto ‘s superb, tactile, stress-inducing music is a muted “internal” score reflecting the protagonist’s state of mind.

The acting befits a drama. Boyd Holbrook (“ Logan ”) and Vicky Krieps (“ Phantom Thread ” and the current “ Old ”) are effective in their roles, and even the random folks who help Beckett along the way read as fleshed-out characters. UCLA-trained director and writer Panos Koronis makes a calm, excellent heavy. Oscar winner Vikander is the very picture of the one , the woman with whom this guy would fall completely in love. The first time we see them out and about, with her bed head and unpainted face, April glows with warmth. Yet Vikander is a skilled enough actress that, even from the start, despite their intoxication with each other, there are layers to her feelings — they recently fought and we feel that, too.

Washington’s everyman is believably human, with his cleverness and limitations. The actor has the difficult task of balancing Beckett’s roiling grief with the adrenaline his survival instinct pushes through his body, and he mostly succeeds. One wishes there were more of that emotion poking through the surface to visibly drive him to the film’s satisfying conclusion. But that’s a small thing compared to “Beckett’s” virtues, of which there are many.

'Beckett'

No rating Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes Playing: Starts streaming on Netflix Aug. 13

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Following a tragic car accident in Greece, an American tourist finds himself at the center of a dangerous political conspiracy and on the run for his life. Following a tragic car accident in Greece, an American tourist finds himself at the center of a dangerous political conspiracy and on the run for his life. Following a tragic car accident in Greece, an American tourist finds himself at the center of a dangerous political conspiracy and on the run for his life.

• Ferdinando Cito Filomarino
• Kevin A. Rice
• John David Washington
• Boyd Holbrook
• Vicky Krieps
• 669 User reviews
• 98 Critic reviews
• 52 Metascore
• 1 nomination

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• Trivia Originally titled 'Born to be Murdered' and set for traditional theatrical release before the distribution rights were acquired by Netflix and the title changed to 'Beckett'.
• Goofs Greek uniformed police officers are not allowed to have a beard.

Tynan : You fucked up my face, man.

Beckett : You don't deserve a face like that.

• Soundtracks Born to Be Written by Devonté Hynes Performed by Devonté Hynes (as Blood Orange)

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• August 13, 2021 (United States)
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‘Beckett’ Review: He Must Go On

In this unthrilling thriller, John David Washington plays an Everyman who racks up a lot of miles while running on empty.

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By Manohla Dargis

In “Beckett,” John David Washington plays a guy who keeps stumbling into trouble. He’s an ordinary man, or so we’re to believe. This conceit, though, is soon torpedoed both by a story that grows more implausible with each passing second and by his character’s gift for self-preservation. Especially impressive in this respect are his legs, which pump like pistons as he sprints through bullets and other dangers that keep getting in his way.

In genre terms, “Beckett” is a thriller, if one that’s light on thrills. Mostly, it is a Running Man Movie. Men and women have been running — literally or metaphorically, on foot or by car — as long as movies have been around. Sometimes, the runners seem directionless (and go in circles), yet even when they don’t know their final destination (Mexico? Canada?), they adhere to a few rules of the road. They tend not to respect borders or boundaries, including those of genre, and rush in wherever they can, in comedies, noirs, westerns, you name it. Invariably they head toward danger.

When you first meet Washington’s character, Beckett, he’s traveling on the Greek mainland with his girlfriend, April (Alicia Vikander), where they’re poking around some ruins in what seems to be off-season. (A negligible presence, Vikander seems to have been cast because she’s a name.) Beckett, who works in tech, doesn’t seem interested in the scenery; his eyes and attention are fixed on April. Their smiles and coziness are stiff and unpersuasive, as is the dialogue. But the two of them are pretty and like to smooch, and it’s agreeable or at least pleasant enough watching movie people nuzzle each other.

Something happens and Beckett is soon alone and on the move, crossing a land that resembles an obstacle course. Filled with enigmatic villains, good Samaritans, Mediterranean scrub and little else (not even racial prejudice), the Greece that Beckett traverses is a destabilizing, putatively exotic backdrop for our hapless hero. In shrewder hands, this could read as a critique of the tourist-board shilling of certain movies. Here, however, the absence of blue seas, charming goats and dimensionally rendered locals seems like indifference, to the point that it’s hard not to think the country’s appeal rests entirely in the tax breaks it grants filmmakers who shoot there.

The story is at once overstuffed and underdeveloped, fusing personal tragedy with political intrigue. For reasons that never make much sense, people with guns are chasing Beckett, whose primary distinction is his ability to evade capture. So he runs and keeps on running as he wades through water, crosses lonely roads, scampers down dusty hills and hitches a ride with an earnest activist, Lena (a wasted Vicky Krieps). Yet another of those improbable female guardian angels that moviemakers adore, Lena is soon swept up in Beckett’s adventure, helping him piece together the ragged narrative pieces.

For the most part, Beckett clocks miles and looks trapped, which certainly makes him an empathetic (or at least a relatable) figure. But the easy compassion you feel for characters in distress goes only so far. You need something else to bind you to them, whether it’s mystery, charisma, an oddball personality or, well, just the filmmaking. The actors need the very same. Washington is a likable actor and easy on the eyes, but the character is unproductively one-dimensional and so is the performance, which remains reactive and opaque. Here, at least, he can’t turn an underconceptualized character into one whom you either care about or want to watch gasping and grimacing for several hours.

The director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, making his first feature in English (from a script by Kevin A. Rice), keeps the pieces in motion but doesn’t create a sense of urgency of the kind that sustains a feature-length chase. That’s too bad. It’s especially disappointing given some of the talent behind the camera: the music was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto and the cinematographer, costume designer and editor all worked on the art-house release “ Call Me by Your Name. ” Filomarino served as the second unit director on that movie, which presumably explains why its director, Luca Guadagnino, signed onto this one as a producer. Maybe it’s time for someone here to cut the cord.

Beckett Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

Manohla Dargis has been the co-chief film critic since 2004. She started writing about movies professionally in 1987 while earning her M.A. in cinema studies at New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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Netflix’s Beckett puts the wrong man at the center of a wrong-man thriller

Tenet star John David Washington lacks the charisma for Netflix’s messy action movie

by Robert Daniels

The setup to Ferdinando Cito Filomarino’s Netflix suspense flick, Beckett , is enticing, even thrilling. Beckett ( Tenet and Malcolm & Marie star John David Washington) wakes up in bed, draped over his girlfriend April (Alicia Vikander). They’re enjoying their Athens vacation, sightseeing the stony ruins and foggy mountains that dot the exotic locale. But they hear a rumor of an upcoming protest that’ll dim their sunny spot. On their drive to a different, quieter resort in the mountains, Beckett falls asleep, crashing their car into a house. Beckett emerges from the crash with a broken arm, but April dies.

Beckett bites off way more than it can chew. Following the crash, Beckett tells police he saw a redheaded child in the house he collided with. He doesn’t know it, but this kid’s face is plastered all over Greece. He’s the kidnapped nephew of the leftist politician Karras (Yorgos Pirpassopoulos), who’s building a coalition to reverse the austerity measures imposed on Greece by the European Union. His strategy has displeased the country’s far-right facists. The film never reveals anything else about these opposing sides, though, which keeps viewers at arm’s length, unable to fully engage with the film’s larger political conflict.

Beckett is the Italian director’s first English-language film. It embroils an unwitting protagonist in Greece’s internal political conflict, sending him on the run from two homicidal, unnamed people (Panos Koronis and Lena Kitsopoulou) posing as cops. Kevin A. Rice’s script follows in the footsteps of similar wrong-man stories: Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps , Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive , and so forth — stories concerning people forced to go on the lam after being sucked into larger conspiracies. This film, unfortunately, fails to live up to the quality of its influences. Filomarino’s Beckett lacks urgency, wit, and a lead actor capable of pulling together its underwritten themes.

Rice’s script is bloated, yet underdeveloped when it tries to balance Beckett’s mourning with his fight for survival. At every turn, he cries at the thought of his dead girlfriend. But the film barely spends setup time with either of them, save for their fleeting sightseeing. And Beckett doesn’t share any memories about her to let viewers in on his loss. It focuses on the pursuit by the false cops, who hope to tie up the loose end Beckett represents before he can reach the American embassy, where US agent Tynan (Boyd Holbrook) is waiting for him. The obstacles these assassins pose aren’t entirely attention-grabbing, because Beckett works past them too easily.

Worst yet, the character as scripted is one-dimensional, giving Washington little to work with. But Washington doesn’t bring much to the table either. He’s overshadowed by his co-stars, flat and devoid of any charisma. Vikander only appears in the film’s opening minutes. In that brief time, she’s a far more giving scene partner than her counterpart, offering furtive glances and maneuvering Washington’s cement block worth of emotions. Not only does Beckett miss her when she’s gone, the audience is likely to miss her presence too.

Vicky Krieps ( Phantom Thread ) as Lena, one of two leftist activists who helps Beckett to the American embassy, also outshines Washington. Krieps’ emotive face offers the sense of warmth that the script cannot. The film barely gives up anything about her underwritten character, but she makes her years of fighting for change visible, and her empathy for Beckett, a man she just met, is written all over her face. Washington struggles to pull a similar range into his character. You need charisma to pull off a wrong-man thriller, a reason to root for the good guy beyond the narrative saying we should. Washington doesn’t have that.

And he never has. He looks physically lost, as though he’s never had a camera pointed at him. (See Tenet .) Whenever he cries, he has a habit, seen in Malcolm & Marie , of rolling his eyes way back into his head to find the tears. And his blank stare doesn’t pull viewers into his worldview. (See Tenet again. Or don’t.) He leaves viewers at a perpetual distance, always watching him react instead of inhabiting his emotions. All these shortcomings come back to bite him here.

Though the lead actor is expected to bear the brunt of responsibility when a film lacks charisma or personal draw — especially a wrong-man movie — it would be unfair to blame Washington alone for this misfire. Beckett evades his pursuers through craggy cliffs, a graffiti-painted train, and in the trunk of a car. But all these setpieces feel like they were captured in haste, and they don’t maximize the inherent intrigue of their surroundings. Why set a film in Greece if you’re going to make its exotic allure so generic? Filomarino needn’t show tourist traps, but he doesn’t find an interesting hole in the wall either. Even the extras are unexciting and seemingly disengaged. Washington, a Black man, is running through the streets with handcuffs on, yet no one blinks an eye.

At times, it feels like Filomarino does want to bring race into the story. But the villains’ intentions aren’t just mysterious, they’re frustratingly opaque. The Greek dialogue isn’t translated in the subtitles, so when the villains discuss Beckett, we don’t know how they’re describing him to each other. We do, however, at different points, hear his pursuers shout into crowds that they’re looking for a Black man. When Beckett arrives at the American Embassy, he sees a picture of Obama. It’s as though Filomarino knows the subtext of an African-American being chased in a foreign country by police, but doesn’t have the narrative or visual vocabulary to tease out his intentions.

The only Beckett crew member who seems to understand the vibe a wrong-man film needs is composer Ryuichi Sakamoto ( The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence ), whose shrieking strings and off-kilter combination of cymbals and toms builds anxiety. The other moving parts are too substandard to sustain the wanted suspense, to the point where even a protest turned ugly and Beckett leaping off a building to stop a moving car isn’t enough to resuscitate the film. Beckett ’s lead actor is a dull performer spinning a duller web, and he’s the wrong man to deliver this flawed, unruly plot.

Beckett debuts on Netflix on August 13.

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Beckett Reviews

I couldn't help but be blown away by how skillful Filomarino is as a filmmaker, especially because it's his first English-language film. Go in with low expectations, and it might just take your breath away.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Mar 6, 2024

Beckett is a throwback to 70s thrillers that’s easily dismissible.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 9, 2022

As is the case with Frantic, the unique setting and socialization of Beckett gives it an idiosyncratic European flavor, a sort of arthouse spin on a generic American thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 22, 2022

Filomarino’s film begs for a deeper consideration and asks its audience to look beyond its genre exterior. Its story may be simple to a fault and its themes too subtle for their own good. But there’s more meat on the movie’s bones that it may first appear

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 17, 2022

The setting is important. The signs are smartly scattered.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 2, 2022

It is in the third act that Beckett completely goes off the rails. What started out as an intimate film, morphed into a genre film within the first fifteen minutes, starts to look like a fan-made Homeland episode.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 19, 2022

This action-packed thriller aims to exploit the unexpected, offering a suspenseful watch with a unique combination of storyline, location, and actors.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 15, 2021

Shall I go on to talk about the fact that the music tries to supply the tension that's not in the script? Or that we never do understand who the various bad guys represent? And that by the end we no longer care?

Full Review | Sep 28, 2021

Beneath the stylish surface, the film lacks the meaningful sociocultural depth to supplement its straightforward twists.

Full Review | Sep 10, 2021

Good -- not great -- but certainly worth checking out.

Full Review | Sep 9, 2021

Who doesn't love this kind of thriller when done well, but this is stumbling, loosely conceived and lacks conviction, despite terrific cinematography and music of mood

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 5, 2021

There's a Hitchcockian simplicity to Ferdinando Cito Filomarino's Beckett, a man-on-the-run thriller that benefits as much from what it doesn't do as what it does.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 2, 2021

Beckett can feel like the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time and in the wrong movie. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Sep 1, 2021

Another streaming actioner that feels like a pumped-out product riding its star's marquee.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 27, 2021

"Beckett" has all the prerequisites at which Hitchcock excelled. An amiable, reasonably good-looking man, generally in control of his life, must flee damaging forces beyond his control.

Full Review | Aug 26, 2021

It could be a lot better. It could be a lot stronger as it approaches the finish. But there's something to be said for watching a guy hide in a car trunk and think, "For him, this is probably the best part of his day."

Full Review | Aug 21, 2021

The chase aspect and the beautiful 70s-ish cinematography in Beckett makes the film an enjoyable watch. Washington also successfully delivers an exciting performance as a man on the run, even though you might have to overlook some of the unrealistic flaws

Full Review | Aug 20, 2021

[A] thriller lacking thrills, an action movie short on action. With pedestrian direction and a script that is both thin and convoluted, Beckett never stood a chance.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 20, 2021

[A] less than thrilling thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 19, 2021

"Beckett" isn't horrible but it seems uncertain as to what it truly wants to be.