Becky - Review Thread

This is a thriller about a lake house that's besieged by Neo Nazis at the same time a father has brought his daughter, still grieving over the death of her mother to cancer, there in the hopes of getting her on board with the fact that he's decided to marry his current new girlfriend, who's also visiting with her son. The daughter, Becky, is outside in her fort when the Nazis arrive and takes it upon herself to dispatch them as brutally as possible.

Running at a brisk 90 minutes, Becky is a pretty straightforward movie that knows exactly what it is, and in that regard, I can say I mostly enjoyed it. It's a movie focused solely on the tension and suspense derived from its main situation, and co-directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion prove pretty adept at establishing and sustaining said tension. When things boil over to the (very) violent outbursts, it is effective, with more than one piece of resulting imagery that made me voice my shock at the screen. The directors are clearly going for a specific tone here, as are the screenwriters, and they definitely succeed to that end. The why of the Nazis coming to this house in the first place is to obtain a mysterious key hidden there. What the key opens/why it's so important is never explained, but again, something like that isn't really the point here. This is a movie made up of characters designed specifically to b e brutally murdered or maimed, tortured or fulfill whatever other roles the plot requires of them, but that's mostly okay because the movie works as this sort of gory thrill ride.

Kevin James plays the leader of the Nazi group in his first real step into dramatic territory, and he's surprisingly good and menacing in the role. Now, the character isn't one that requires a whole lot of depth, mind you, but James does bring this kind of quiet intensity to the role that works. It's not like a breakout performance, per se, but rather a promising glimpse of what he can do if he decides to take on more of these dramatic parts.

Where the movie runs into its biggest problem, ironically, is in its title character. Not Lulu Wilson herself, because she is good in the role, but rather the writing of the character Becky. Pretty much from minute one, Becky is shown to be an absolute brat. To a degree, this is understandable because the character hasn't been coping well with the death of her mom. But the movie seems to use that as an excuse not to give her any redeeming qualities. This is the character in the movie who we should be rooting for, but instead, we're left thinking that this girl is just gonna become as vicious as the psychos she's taking down when she grows up -- if she's not there already. It's weird, because while the movie itself is still entertaining, the title protagonist just leaves you cold.