Arka Mukhopadhyay
Helmed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino based on a story of his own, ‘Beckett’ is a bilingual political thriller of high-voltage tension, immense intrigue, and cat-and-mouse sequences that are painful to watch. A US citizen enjoying a vacation in Greece with his girlfriend becomes the victim of a sinister international conspiracy cover-up. John David Washington, the son of Denzel Washington, sways with his performance in the titular role. Parts of the story are lost in translation, but the backdrop of a politically turbulent Greece prepares the viewers for an enthralling and ambient drama.
In the end, some questions find definite answers, while some are kept open for discussion. If you are looking for answers, let us decode the ending. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Beckett Plot Synopsis
Americans Beckett and his girlfriend April are having the blast of a vacation in Greece. They are staying near the Syntagma Square in Athens, but they decide to move to the countryside after the forecast of a loud protest. Beckett has booked accommodation for them, but April believes they should confirm on the phone before going. April makes the phone call. It’s a long way to the place, and Beckett falls asleep on the steering wheel. The car veers off the road, falls off the cliff, and breaks into a house. Beckett comes back to his senses and finds a woman and a boy staring at him. The woman goes into hiding, and the bloody corpse of April catches Beckett’s attention.
April is dead, and Beckett wakes up at a hospital. While his words often get lost in translation, Beckett manages to hold a local police officer and state the incident to him in detail. He also tells the officer of seeing the boy, and the officer excuses himself, promising to find the boy’s whereabouts. Beckett revisits the accident site and sees a blonde lady and a male officer on the site. Before he can understand anything, the lady starts shooting at him. Now Beckett finds the whole state after him in a cat-and-mouse game. He hopes to find security in the embassy, but the story gradually reveals that Beckett has become an easy pawn in a larger international political conspiracy.
Beckett Ending: Is Beckett Dead or Alive?
Beckett is the eponymous protagonist of this modern-day Kafkaesque nightmare. Beckett is the ubiquitous common man who becomes the victim of a bigger political conspiracy. In the end, Beckett becomes a coincidental tragic hero – an expendable man who was present in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the course of the story, we come to know that the people pursuing Beckett are the same people who are after Karras. Beckett calls April’s relative Bob to give him the horrific news. But his only wrong move is to go back to the site of the disaster. After escaping the shocking encounter at the accident scene, Beckett ends up at a house, and a local man promises to protect him. But Greece, going through a state of austerity, is a volatile place, and Beckett is only one up against a potential army.
The man is seemingly dead, and Beckett is on the run with a plastered arm. He manages to get a ride to Kalambaka, from where he gets on a train to Athens. On the train, Beckett encounters an intimidating official, and when Beckett tries to pull the chain and escape the train, the man tries to reach his gun. Beckett shoots the man on his foot in the commotion, giving the police a valid reason to pursue Beckett. In the meantime, he comes to meet two women, Lena and Eleni, who agree to give him a ride to Athens in the truck of their car. After getting an idea of the conspiracy, Beckett gets off at a checkpoint. A man manages to stab and wound him in the subway, but Beckett attracts fellow passengers, and the man retreats. Two enthusiastic students take him to the Embassy, where he meets officer Majessy.
Majessy hands him over to another man, called Tynan. After hearing the story, Tynan suggests taking Beckett to local police, but we come to know that he is in league with the cover-up. Apparently, he is a double agent working to tamper with the elections in Greece. After Tynan tries to apply a taser on Beckett, Beckett gives Tynan a taste of his sown medicine. They end up in the basement of a mall, and Tynan gets the news of Karras’ assassination. After hearing the big news, Tynan is willing to let Beckett leave the country, but Beckett smashes Tynan’s skull with a rod.
Beckett is now driven by a zeal to let the truth out, and after spotting the blonde woman at the rally, Beckett follows her to the rooftop of a parking lot. Beckett and the woman engage in a fistfight (and subsequently gunfight). Beckett shots the other man, but he escapes with the car while the woman gives Beckett a formidable fight. After dealing with the lady, Beckett follows the car. In a re-enactment of a scene from ‘The Dark Knight,’ Beckett impeccably times a tricky jump to fall on the roof of the rogue car. The man is dead, too, while Beckett is alive by the end. He does not understand why he is alive, as we know he should have been dead by now. But Beckett has a bigger purpose in the story, and therefore, he is kept alive to reveal the truth.
What Happens to Dimos Karras?
Dimos Karras, the nephew of the political leader, is at the center of the conspiracy. The enthralling drama kickstarts only after Beckett gets a sight of Dimos. However, a tourist in a foreign land, Beckett does not know who Dimos is. He comes to spot Dimos again in a poster Lena and Eleni post along the road. After some questioning, Beckett gets to know that Dimos is the kidnapped nephew of Karras, the leader of the leftist coalition. He has seemingly been kidnapped by an ultra-right extremist group named Sunrise, who are also orchestrating the cover-up. Later from Tynan, we know that a leftist extremist organization named Communist Brigade takes responsibility for the kidnapping.
But we know that Tynan is not a person who can be trusted. The story’s breaking only makes the coalition look weak before the general populace, as it unearths internal conflict within the coalition. In the end, Beckett realizes that Tynan may have a role to play in falsifying the acknowledgment by the leftist organization. Karras is assassinated in his own rally, while Beckett catches a glimpse of the blonde woman. He finds the car and risks his life for stopping it. At last, Dimos is rescued from the trunk of the car. This final revelation reinstates the theory that whoever is after Dimos and his uncle is also after Beckett. This brings us to the final question.
Who Are the People After Beckett?
As Tynan blurts out shortly before his demise, Karras meddled with some mighty people for money. While his country was getting decrepit, Karras had a massive loan under his name, and the people who lent the money to Karras wanted it back. Greece, shown in the movie, is a volatile country weakened by its economic crisis. At this juncture, government becomes corrupt, and mafias engineer governmental affairs. Seemingly, the people who lent money to Karras are the same people who kidnap Dimos.
They also want Beckett dead since he got to know about the location where the kidnapped boy was kept. In the end, all of the bad guys die, keeping the mystery a mystery. A cacophony of lies obscures the truth, but maybe we can still deduce something. With Karras’ death, the right-wing party would get a vantage point since the leftist and separatist coalition would get a huge blow. Therefore, Lena’s deduction may be right – the extremist organization ‘Sunrise’ may have a role to play in the assassination and the kidnapping. Is the US government complicit in the cover-up, or is Tynan a rogue agent working for criminals? Due to some deeper international conspiracy, the US government may not want Greece to bail out the EU. While the film scratches the surface, this is not the immediate scope of the film.
