Review: Beast of Burden
Charisma may be an essential ingredient in one-character, single-setting, real-time films, but charisma can only take one so far if the story itself is lacking. Tom Hardy in Locke and Blake Lively in The Shallows are both prime examples of how an actor might do all the heavy lifting, but with the added assistance of great writing and direction. Beast of Burden, starring Daniel Radcliffe, on the other hand, illustrates the opposite.
Radcliffe is by no means a great actor in the way Hardy, Daniel Day-Lewis or Tom Cruise are. Those performers not only utilise their inherent magnetism, but they can also rely on their technique, instinct and resourcefulness if the story is inadequate or the direction subpar. Radcliffe is adventurous in his choice of roles, which are varied and often idiosyncratic, and, whilst he can often handle difficult material like Swiss Army Man, he has yet to develop the capability to rise above a film like Beast of Burden, which seems to wear its inadequacies like a badge of honour.
The film is Locke with a dash of American Made. Radcliffe plays Sean Haggerty, a pilot who is flying across the Mexican border with a delivery for a drug cartel. As if that wasn't risky enough, Sean has actually taken on this task so that he can reveal their drop-off point to the DEA, who have promised him a new life and the expensive medical treatment his wife Jen (Grace Gummer) requires for her ovarian cancer. Naturally, Jen has no knowledge of what Sean is up to, though it's clear from the tense phone conversations during his flight that their relationship is already frayed around the edges. Thus much of the film concentrates on Sean's increasing emotional turmoil as he juggles calls from Jen, the drug cartel and the DEA agent Bloom (Pablo Schreiber), with the latter two not above using threats to ensure that Sean stay the course.
It may brim with potential on paper, but the final execution is inept at best. Where every phone call in Locke added another layer of suspense to an already tense situation, every ring in Beast of Burden only signals irritation. The monotony of the narrative extends to the cheap-looking visuals and the laughably near-histrionic performances. Beast of Burden bails on its conceit fairly early on, but neither its unnecessary flashbacks nor its tiresome on-the-ground finale offer any relief from the drudgery.
Beast of Burden
Directed by: Jesper Ganslandt
Written by: Adam Hoelzel
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Grace Gummer, Pablo Schreiber, Robert Wisdom, Cesar Perez, David Joseph Martinez
