beast of burden
★★
Director: Jesper Ganslandt (FALKENBERG FAREWELL, APE)
Starring: DANIEL RADCLIFFE, GRACE GUMMER, PABLO SCHREIBER, AND ROBERT WISDOM.
REVIEWER: lyall carter
Pilot Sean Haggerty must deliver a shipment of cocaine across the U.S.-Mexican border for his final run as a drug smuggler. Alone in a small plane, he's faced with the burden of his allegiance to the cartel, his deal with the Drug Enforcement Administration and his increasingly tense relationship with his wife.
Since the last instalment of the Harry Potter in 2011 Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint have all headed out to a variety of projects with mixed success. Unfortunately Beast of Burden will not go down as one of Radcliffe's successful outings.
There is nothing new about a movie being solely driven by a single isolated character, but in similar films like Buried and Locke the film makers managed to make it work. Again, as it so often does, it comes down to story and its believability, if all of its elements ring true. But in the case of Beast of Burden it just doesn't work or ring true.
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The majority of the screen time belongs to Radcliffe and he valiantly does the best of a bad job trying his best to convince us that he is a desperate man willing to do whatever it takes to get out of this situation alive and with the money he has been promised. Ultimately his role and Beast of Burden as a whole is underwritten which is unfortunate. The premise and Radcliffe in a role like this appeared so promising.
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A promising premise with a solid class, Beast of Burden is ultimately let down by poor writing.
★★
Beast of Burden is available on DVD and digital from all good disc and digital retailers.
