As a faith-based film, taking into account that this is an action thriller and dips into Christian themes, I thought the film was good. Actors David White, William Baldwin, and Jeff Halley delivered great performances. The action scenes were very good.. but you will notice that all the action scenes take place in a home, warehouse, etc. and you never once see a car chase with vehicles being damaged, shot at, colliding with one another, etc. which leads into realizing the filmmakers had a limited budget for the film.
I am a Christian, and I used to be a filmmaker that made a faith-based police drama called "Streets of Harvest" and a faith-based supernatural horror film called "The Great Altar." I feel at times we try so hard to push the gospel message into these movies without realizing who are target audience is. (Example: We want to speak the language of the culture to reach the unsaved, but we constantly create a product that only speaks to members of the local church) Well.... Why bother saying you're trying to reach the unsaved if your only audience is Christians? I'm not discrediting these films, but I feel a lot of Christian movies are like that including "God's Not Dead," "War Room," "Facing The Giants" and "Heaven Is For Real," where the film is only catering to the Sunday morning church crowd, and leaves several non-believers turned off.
With "Beckman" I feel this is a good example, at the very least, a step in the right direction to make a faith-based film that appeals to non-Christians without coming across as too preachy. So because of that, I enjoyed this film.
My issues are that, and hopefully I'm wrong, but I feel "Beckman" will only be remembered as a rip off of 'John Wick,' and 'Taken.' If you're looking for originality, you won't find it here, which is sad because there was an opportunity for this to be original and not just a copycat of other action thrillers. Even the pacing for this film, and the way it's edited, makes you feel like they were trying really hard to copy 'John Wick.' Because of this, some viewers may watch 30 minutes of it, then try to find something else to watch or say, "y'know, i'd rather watch John Wick 3 rather than this."
This is just my opinion, but maybe this would make a better plot for a faith-based film, maybe even a sequel or spinoff: Eric Beckman is an assassin who abandons the network, becomes a devout Christian / reverend at his local church, but the agency tracks him down and takes both his adopted daughter and church staff hostage; saying that unless he completes one more assignment, they'll kill his daughter and staff, and he's put into a circumstance where he feels he's going against God, but he also wants no harm to come to his congregation. This leads him on a mission to rescue his daughter, hide his church staff and ultimately going after the higher ups of the Network. Yeah, it may seem cliche, but at the very least, you're not deliberately copying what another filmmaker did.
Anyway, I still believe this is a film worth seeing. Give it a shot rather than passing on it because it seems like a copycat. If you're like me, you're proud of your Christian faith, and you love action thrillers, you should see it. It will have its detractors, but I think it's still worth seeing.
