Beckett (2021)

Beckett has the rough, breathless appeal of a ’70s political thriller: a stranger in a foreign country, no safe hands to pass the problem to, and a conspiracy that feels bigger than any one person can outrun. Ferdinando Cito Filomarino uses Greece not as postcard scenery but as a living, anxious landscape of back roads, crowds, and sudden dead ends, and the movie’s momentum rarely lets you exhale for long. John David Washington gives a fiercely physical performance—wounded, terrified, stubbornly upright—that makes every scramble, stumble, and split-second decision feel earned rather than choreographed. It’s not for viewers who want a puzzle-box mystery or sleek spy elegance, but if you’re craving a lean, propulsive man-on-the-run ride with real grit under its nails, it delivers.

Beckett wants to be a grounded, on-the-run thriller where an ordinary guy gets swallowed by a messy political situation, and it does have a gritty, sunbaked Greece backdrop plus a committed, physical lead performance from John David Washington. The problem is the script feels thin, so the conspiracy elements never land with much weight and the suspense often plays more like “stuff happens” than a steadily tightening vise. Action beats arrive, but the pacing can feel oddly flat and the emotional aftermath of the inciting tragedy doesn’t get explored enough to make the chase truly gripping. If you’re after a smart, twisty mystery with a big payoff, this may leave you cold; if you just want a straightforward survival scramble with decent atmosphere and bursts of brutality, you’ll likely get enough out of it.