'Beckett' Tells the Gripping Tale of a Lone Man on the Run — Who Is Chasing After Him?

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for the film Beckett.

What begins as a much-deserved trip to Greece swiftly transforms into the stuff of sweat-inducing nightmares in Beckett, Ferdinando Cito Filomarino's thriller drama that arrived on Netflix on August 13, 2021.

Beckett tells the cripplingly stressful story of a lone man who becomes embroiled in a larger-scale political conspiracy after losing his girlfriend in a car crash. So, who is trying to kill Beckett and why?

Originally titled Born to Be Murdered, Netflix's Beckett charts the strange story of an American tourist who has to learn to fend for himself after accidentally catching sight of a left-wing politician's kidnapped nephew, Dimos (Filippos Ioannidis).

The troubles begin once Beckett (John David Washington) and his girlfriend, April (Alicia Vikander), make way to the countryside in a bid to avoid the fast-erupting protests in Athens. But Beckett falls asleep behind the wheel, crashing the car into the house where the politician's enemies hid Dimos. What follows next is one man's attempts to process the unshakable grief triggered by the death of his girlfriend while also trying to find a way out of a country on the brink of political turmoil.

Beckett saw the kidnapped Dimos — which is what lands him on the top of the wanted list. He is a witness — which means that the criminals behind the atrocity immediately want him gone.

After the whole car crash-turned-accidental-witnessing, Beckett ends up in hospital. Blissfully unaware of the gravity of the situation, he tells everything about what had happened to Officer Xenakis (Panos Koronis).

Beckett returns to the scene of the car crash — where he becomes the target of a shootout. At one point, he jumps on a train, where he accidentally shoots an officer in the foot.

Upon his arrival to the U.S. embassy, even uglier surprises await. Tynan (Boyd Holbrook) offers to help clear Beckett's name. The only catch? He supports Sunrise, the far-right group quickly gaining foothold in Greece who also happen to face allegations about Dimos's kidnapping.

Karras (Yorgos Pirpassopoulos), the left-wing politician whose enemies include Sunrise and the mafia (to whom Karras owed money), gets killed in a shooting.

Several scenes in the movie seem to indicate that Sunrise, the fast-growing ultra-right-wing movement with connections to the police, was behind Dimos's kidnapping. At one point, the Communist Brigade also comes forward to take responsibility for the atrocity, likely to obtain more political power.

But, as Tynan tells Beckett, the real culprit is the mafia.

Beckett asks Tynan: “So taking Dimos wasn’t political, then. Just criminals Karras owed — that’s what you’re telling me? So this is all just mafia bull----?”

Perhaps to redeem himself from the guilt felt over the death of his girlfriend, Beckett sets out on a mission to save Dimos, the young boy he accidentally caught sight of right after driving into the house near the Ioannina mountains. In this, he succeeds.

"I should have died," the battered main character says in the last scene of the movie, in what can likely be taken as an example of his casting the blame on himself for his girlfriend's passing.

Beckett is available on Netflix now.