LONDON: Promising to be one of the cornerstones of Netflix’s ‘one big film each week of 2021’ slate, “Beckett” whet its audience’s appetite with a tense, intriguing trailer a few months ago, which saw the titular protagonist (played by “Tenet” and “Malcom & Marie” star John David Washington) on holiday in rural Greece with girlfriend April (Alicia Vikander) when the fallout from a terrible accident sees Beckett become the subject of a terrifying manhunt across the country. For the latest updates, follow us on Instagram @arabnews.lifestyle Sadly, while the full film is (at times) a surprisingly loving tribute to the conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s and 80s, it appears to have fallen down the cracks between genres. Directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino, “Beckett” can’t make up its mind between the gritty realism of the Jason Bourne films (and more recent Bond outings) and schlocky action pictures that require a willing suspension of disbelief to enable their senseless set pieces. “Beckett” stars John David Washington. (Supplied) In the murky result, Washington’s everyman is not supposed to know what’s going on — he’s neither a good fighter nor an expert at surviving on the run. And while this lends a sense of relatability to Filomarino’s movie, it’s only a useful plot device if the payoff is worth it. But when we finally learn why Beckett is in the crosshairs of half of Greece, it’s such a shoulder-shrugging moment that it’s hard to shake off a sense of nagging disappointment. Washington does his best, though he’s hardly helped by some staggeringly wooden dialog with Vikander that does neither of their characters any favors. There’s the odd flash of promise (the palpable sense of menace as Beckett begins to realize just how far the authorities will go to silence him, for example), but then the movie takes a 15-minute detour with too much exposition, and all momentum slips away again. “Beckett” is a strange film. In the end, it’s too realistic to be a big-budget action movie, but too silly to be an arthouse thriller.