‘Beckett’: John David Washington Doesn’t Play Your Typical Action-Movie Hero
Preview
“How the hell did I get into this situation?!” American tourist Beckett asks desperately in what director Ferdinando Cito Filomarino calls “a dramatic conspiracy thriller.” It’s a fair question.
Beckett (BlacKkKlansman’s John David Washington, above) is on vacation in Greece with his girlfriend April (Alicia Vikander) when a tragic car crash lands him in the hospital. While he’s still making sense of the accident, and for reasons unknown to him, he’s hunted down by corrupt local authorities and a blonde woman brandishing a gun.
Not a typical action-movie hero, Beckett “is a warm person who lets life happen to him,” says Filomarino. But he’s forced to muster all his courage and smarts (and apparent imperviousness to pain!) to survive in a country roiling with political unrest. The heretofore ordinary guy finds himself leaping off cliffs and bridges and engaging in near-lethal fights while being knifed, shot and hit by a car. Washington, a onetime pro football player, did his own stunts “save for the dangerous high jumps,” notes the director.
All the while, mostly on his own, he is desperately trying to reach the U.S. embassy in Athens, a seemingly safe haven for an American abroad. Or is it? Teases Filomarino, “Things may not be that simple.”
Beckett, Movie Premiere, Friday, August 13, Netflix
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