Becky (2020)

[Flack]

Over the past few decades a subgenre of R-rated "Home Alone" clones has emerged. Each of these films feature minors who find themselves the target of burglaries or home invasions and are forced to defend their property and/or lives through the use of increasingly violent booby traps. The problem with nearly all of these films is that they eject nearly everything else Home Alone was about -- the spirit of Christmas, family bonds, literally all of it -- and solely focus on the traps.

Becky, a thirteen-year-old girl, is still mourning the passing of her mother to cancer when her father Jeff (Joel McHale) surprises her with a weekend getaway to the old family cabin, a place they have not visited since Becky's mother was alive. After they arrive, the surprises continue. Jeff has invited his girlfriend Kayla and her son Ty to join them at the cabin, and over dinner Becky is informed that Jeff and Kyla are engaged. It's this final bit of news that pushes the young girl over the edge, sending her out the door and into the woods.

It is while Becky is away that this film's version of the Wet Bandits arrive in the form of a small group White Supremacists who have overtaken a prison bus and escaped custody. The group is led by Dominick (Kevin James), who has come to the cabin to retrieve a key he claims will end all race wars, or something. What the key is or opens doesn't matter; what's important is that Jeff, Kayla, and Ty have been captured by four violent men willing to do anything to retrieve a key -- which, it turns out, hangs around Becky's neck.

Let the games begin.

I appreciate films that set the tone up front, and by the beginning of the second act one of our hostages has been tortured with a burning meat skewer, another has been shot through the leg, and one of the attackers is forced to sever his dangling eyeball with a kitchen knife. The majority of this takes place before Becky goes to town, and if it's true that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, apparently that goes double for teenage girls who've recently lost their mothers.

None of this works unless the home invaders are so incredibly dim-witted that they are repeatedly outsmarted by a thirteen-year-old girl, but fortunately they are. The group is content to send Aryans after the girl one at a time, and when they don't return, send another one. It's not explained why Becky is so good at guerilla warfare or crafting weapons that she can repeatedly overtake hardened. prison-trained killers, but she can, and she does, and if more teenagers were this resourceful and violent no parent would be safe for long.

In the end the threat is removed but little is resolved. Big questions, like what happens to Becky next, are left unanswered. The violence isn't just a big part of the movie; it's the only part. Becky is less of a character and just a required cog to make the rest of the violent gears turn. At 90 minutes Becky is a fun thriller, but character development isn't its strong suit.