Kevin James portraying a murdering white supremacist is not the most surprising aspect of the film Becky. Lulu Wilson stars as the titular teen, whose weekend at a lake house with her father Jeff (Joel McHale), takes a horrific turn when a quartet of escaped convicts invade her world.
What Nick Morris, Ruckus Skye, and Lane Skye achieve in the early pages of their screenplay is the establishment of that gaping hole in Becky’s soul from her mother’s excruciating losing battle with cancer. The script also paints a picture of a fractured relationship with her dad, one made more painful due to the fact that he is dating Kayla (Amanda Brugel, The Handmaids Tale). In the few short minutes after he picks her up from school early for their weekend away, all we need to know about Becky is established. She’s fierce, independent, and is nowhere near ready to heal the emotional pain that pierces her constantly.
The thirteen-year-old gets a seismic shock when they arrive at the lake house. Kayla and her young son are there to share the weekend. Her displeasure is palpable. In fact, if looks could kill, everyone involved would be lying on the ground, even poor little Ty (Isaiah Rockcliffe)! She takes off running through the woods, along with her dog Diego, while the other Pitbull mix, Dora, stays by Jeff. Again, without saying a word, or utilizing too much screen time on exposition, Morris, Skye, and Skye have laid the groundwork for a series of dramatic reveals and confrontations and the numerous emotional responses that accompany them.
Not only because the film carries her name, but Becky is key to this entire story on many levels. Her simultaneous possession of resourcefulness and unbridled anger sets her up on a collision course with four hardened criminals who have no idea the thorn in their collective sides that coming for them. For some reason, these guys want something in that lake house that Jeff, Kayla, Ty, and Becky have the misfortune of deciding to visit on this particular weekend.
After an outburst in the home in the early moments of the weekend, Becky flees to an amateurly constructed small fort in the woods. Everything she needs to fight her way out of this situation is in that woodsy retreat.
What seems like a standard, by the book, home invasion film, is anything and that is all because of Wilson’s titular firecracker. The young actress first caught our attention in a few films that share a milieu with Becky, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Annabelle: Creation, and Netflix’s stellar The Haunting of Hill House. The young actress has that unspoken “it” that folks are always talking about and the camera loves her. It takes an actress with a special set of skills to pull off what is required in Wilson’s latest horrorshow. We already know she has a penchant for anger and acting out. What we didn’t know, but is totally believable, is when she is pushed to the edge and believes that there is absolutely nothing else to live for, she becomes more dangerous than those four men who just broke out of prison, combined. Yet, all at the same time, it has to be believable that this is a 13-year-old girl. Wilson is equally as explosive as she is reflective as Becky. This is a hurting little girl who has been thrust into some emotional situations that require much more than most early teenagers could grapple with and thanks to the actress’s supreme talents, every single nuance is believable, powerful, and resonant.
Directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion do something fascinating with the start of their film. They establish an immediate parallel between the goings-on of Becky at school with what is happening to James’ Dominick and his cohorts in prison. Initially, it was too easy to think of school as a prison. But quickly, it becomes clear that the directing duo more sees that back and forth as a way of teasing the runaway trains that are speeding towards each other. The helmers handle the script and the situational drama as well as can be expected. The thing is, there are some moments that are just a little too ridiculous to let slide. With a film like this, there can be a high bar for letting things go for the sake of the thrill and the horror. Sadly, with Becky, there is one that just cannot be overlooked.
James has made his career as a stand-up comic and a sitcom star whose physical presence alone has produced countless laughs. It’s not his fault, but even with his shaved head and Nazi swastikas tattooed on his bald head and other places, he has used his appearance for humor for decades now and it is too much of a hill to climb for audiences to accept him in this role. This is a guy who peed in a pool with Adam Sandler for laughs and even with a big, long beard and a handgun in his hand wreaking havoc, we cannot get past the fact that this is the King of Queens. The other three men in his gang are terrified of him. There’s even a character that can best be described as a gentle giant (Robert Maillet), who folds like a bad poker hand when threatened by James’ Dominick. Certain comics can do it. Certain comedic actors can do it like when Vince Vaughn portrayed the most vicious of souls in Brawl in Cell Block 99, it was explosive. Robin Williams was haunting in One Hour Photo.
Perhaps it is the script that doesn’t give James enough menace to have us believe he is capable of being a racist killer. He tries. The actor gives it his all. One can see why he jumped at the chance of playing someone completely different than any character on his resume. At one point he loses an eye and it should be utterly horrifying. Instead, the actor handles it like it’s a nuisance. His eye just got pulled out of its socket!
Sadly, for James and all involved in Becky, that’s an enormous hurdle to climb for audiences. All the ferocity of Wilson cannot save the film. I’ve mentioned it a million times, but Robert Downey Jr. once said that a film is only as good as its villain. That is particularly important in superhero movies, but also in gut-wrenching horror flicks, which is firmly where Becky lives (someone gets killed by having their guts ripped out by a motorboat engine, for example). With James doing his absolute best, bless him for trying, and missing the mark, there is not too much that can be done to save a pre-ordained sinking ship.
Grade: C