Movies I've Missed Until Now: Becky (2020)

Well, this movie is just about the polar opposite of the one I wrote about last week. Instead of a heart-warming, inspirational sports movie like THE BASKET, BECKY is a bloody, extremely violent thriller about a family caught in an isolated cabin by four vicious escaped convicts on a mission.

The title character, Becky, is a 13-year-old girl who’s still mourning the death of her mother a year earlier. She’s the broody, angsty sort who’s angry with her father because he’s going to get married again. The last thing she wants to do is spend a weekend at the family cabin with him and her new stepmother and stepbrother to be. Maybe not the last thing, because then the escaped convicts show up and make the situation even worse. And Becky gets a perfect opportunity to demonstrate just how mean a 13-year-old girl can be as she escapes and MacGyvers the bad guys into one deadly situation after another.

A movie like this with some plot holes in the script and a bunch of stuff that really stretches credibility relies on its cast to carry things through. Lulu Wilson, who I’d never heard of, plays Becky and does a great job of being both vulnerable and unexpectedly bad-ass. Kevin James, who I’ve liked in all his comedic roles, is cast against type as the leader of the convicts, and he’s even better as a thoroughly despicable villain. He surprised me and probably enjoyed playing evil for a change. Towering former wrestler Robert Maillet is the most sympathetic of the convicts and is also good. Joel McHale, who I usually like, plays Becky’s dad and isn’t given much of anything to do except be a jerk.

I’m not a big fan of movies that are overly violent and gory, and BECKY certainly fits that description. But it generates some genuine suspense and made me want to find out what was going to happen despite my reservations. I wound up kind of liking it and can recommend it if you don’t mind a lot of blood and if some lapses of logic don’t bother you too much. As I said about THE BASKET, I wouldn’t want a steady diet of movies like this, but BECKY is basically okay.