Beckett
NetflixDown and out in a foreign country, hunted by whoever and for whatever, Beckett, the latest feature from Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, does not deal in absolutes. Broad enough to place John David Washington into an adaptable scenario, the leading man is adaptable as ever, but to what end? Targeted and hunted down after a car crash, it would seem the life of this eponymous hero (portrayed by Washington) is a dire display of action tropes and terrified, carefully calculated risks. Birthed in the action genre, yet rebelling against the tropes it still wishes to inhibit, and Filomarino has an immediately confused project on his hands. Not just narrative confusion, but disorientation of genre.
Placing Washington in unknown territory, hunted by unknown entities for unknown reasons sets up elements of the political thriller. With sharp action and a taste for slick filmmaking, there is a sense that the feature wants to be an all out action flick. But Beckett soon changes its mind, trying to expand on the characters and the lack of clarity not through strong writing, but through inconsistent pacing and a banal attempt at broadening the horizons of what the action genre can mean for an audience. It will take a lot more than Washington stumbling his way through the streets with a cast on his arm to summon any real change, especially with Netflix’s shadow looming over the film. Beckett struggles to relent and revolt against that inevitable predictability, but that is what Netflix will do. It is the ghost at the feast, a very barren one at that.
What Beckett fails in action, it also fails comprehensively. Narratively, the film is awash with typical ploys and reveals that, really, prove the audience were right all along. Smothering the viewer with a safety blanket, Beckett falls foul to the inevitability of betrayals, shootouts and trying to make its protagonist feel like a fish out of water. Happy families are inevitably upturned in a film that does little to convince its audience of a leading man’s likability. Beckett never expands on its characters, because there isn’t anywhere they can take him; he is a blank slate, waiting patiently for something to happen to him or someone to encounter him. These are not sudden actions whose believability is founded on the premise of “right place, wrong time,” but instead are discovered solely because Washington is the man of the hour. He adapts well to his role, but even he struggles with bringing any semblance of life to Beckett.
But that is more an issue for the writers and the creatives behind it. A rudimentary issue such as that can rarely be overcome. Beckett fails to overcome typical action tropes and finds it hard to employ any emotional detail to its leading man. He is struggling with the fallout of a devastating action, but how this is portrayed and perceived is of minimal effect. Audiences can barely connect with the man whose expression of grief and anguish is the usually silenced shock, the slightly bulging eyes and the eerie silences of isolation. Beckett has those notes but does not form a tune worthy of its premise.