What can I say? It is August and I feel burnt out. If you are from Texas (or anywhere else in the south), you will probably understand what I mean. However, as it turns out, this is also the time of the year when movie studios tend to churn out the last of their summer films and clear the decks for the big fall season lineup. Now, things might be a bit different, considering the world around us over the past 18 months or so, but I digress…
One such example has just been released by Netflix. Who knew that a streaming service could become so sought after that its release would be just as significant as a theatrical release? I think that even if things were normal, this would still be somewhat of a factor, but that is just my own opinion, is it not? Am I still digressing?…
OK, so “Beckett” is the name of our lead character, who happens to be played the growing, big screen sensation, John David Washington (“Tenet”). He is on a trip with his special lady, April Hanson, played by Alicia Vikander (“The Green Knight”). 
They are in the country of Greece. I admit that this is an interesting setting, as I cannot even recall the last time I saw a movie at this location. As they make their way to their next stop, late at night, they have an automobile accident in which the vehicle is overturned and crashes into a small house, down the side of a hill and just off the main road. Beckett emerges conscious, but badly injured and seems to see some people approaching him, just before he blacks out. When he comes to, he awakes inside of a hospital room, still reeling from the incident and confused about everything that has happened. His girlfriend is not around and the local medical team and police force attempt to clear the haze surrounding his memory, but to little or no avail. The real story, essentially, begins here.
For whatever the reason, Beckett decides to make his way back to the scene of the crash. It would be understandable if a man who has just been through what he has been through could barely make his way around a strange, foreign town, let alone an isolated house on the outskirts of that town, yet he finds it with little difficulty. What he discovers is that there appears to be some kind of a coverup connected to the location and the police are soon on his tracks, trying to put him down, permanently, but why?
Well, that remains unclear, for now. At this point, I was reminded of a movie from the past that had something of a similar premise, known as “The Net.” With that in mind, I began to compare and contrast the two films. How could I not at that point? It is an unsettling situation to say the least: you are in another country, you have lost everything that you hold of value while you are there and you are unsure of whom you can trust. A key difference for Beckett is that he is able to find trustworthy strangers along the way and none of them seem to ever betray his trust, as limited as it must be. I failed to see any evidence in the titular character that he was actually struggling to trust anyone he might come in contact with. That was not the case in “The Net.”
Beckett eventually makes contact with the US Embassy and quickly makes his way to the capital of Greece so that he can get the help he needs on foreign soil. Although he faces some resistance along the way, he gets there with relative ease. If you have ever seen any other movies of a similar nature, you would know that there is no way he is home free. Something has to rise up and so it does. It will become obvious sooner than later, but will you still be at all interested at that stage?
Even though I found myself impressed with the performance of Washington, I felt that the direction the story went was unnecessary. The plot turned away from Beckett’s personal affliction and great loss and toward his mistaken involvement with a potential, national crisis. 
Perhaps I think it would have been more interesting if we did not find out so much about what was really going on. The intensity and interest as a moviegoer, for me, was greater when we did not know the true outcome of Hanson’s condition, for instance. Once I knew the truth about her, there seemed to be nothing left to keep me intrigued by what Beckett was going through. Why should he suddenly care about what he is mixed up in when he had no idea what was going on in the first place? Yes, he is trying to survive, but at what cost and for what?
I did not care what happened after the revelation of Hanson had occurred, plain and simple. Beckett’s reaction. Seemed too minimal, but maybe that was intentional, so that the filmmakers could justify his further involvement in the national crisis in Greece. He had some close saves and ridiculous falls, but that is to be expected in an action movie. The trouble with that is it did not feel like a traditional action film for the majority of the story, More like a thriller, such as “The Net.” I cared about Angela Bennett’s plight in that story. I was satisfied when the outcome came to fruition. I was not quite satisfied at the end of “Beckett,” but at least it was not too long…
Director: Ferdinando Cito Filomarino (“Antonia”)
Screenwriter: Kevin A Rice
Editor: Walter Fasano (“5 is the Perfect Number”)
Starring: John David Washington, Boyd Holbrook as Stephen Tynan (“Eight for Silver”), Vicky Krieps as Lena (“Old”), Alicia Vikander and Michael Stuhlbarg as Mr Hanson (“Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams”)
Distributor: Netflix
Release: August 4th, 2021 (Locarno) and August 13th, 2021 (United States)
