The most interesting thing about Home Alone is that, through all his elaborate tricks and traps, Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister should have killed his assailants on multiple occasions. Yet, being technically defined as a “family film,” the movie found bandits Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) escaping with a mere combination of bruises, lumps and humiliating defeat. Three decades later we are given Becky, which could be defined as the Hard-R version of the 1990 film.
It begins rather tamely, juxtaposing the eponymous character (Lulu Wilson), a young girl en route to a weekend getaway with her father, Jeff (Joel McHale) and the escape of Neo-Nazi convict, Dom (Kevin James). The worlds of these three characters, plus Dom’s crew, Jeff’s fiancée, Kayla (Amanda Brugel), and her young son, Ty (Isaiah Rockcliffe), will obviously collide as the first act comes to an end, but the ways in which they do offer an unexpectedly entertaining experience, despite all its flaws of stupidity, absurdity and questionable morals.
Becky, still emotional from the death of her mother one year prior, is shocked and upset to learn that her father has invited Kayla and Ty to their family lake house without her knowing. She’s driven to an even greater emotional high when she learns that Jeff and Kayla plan to marry. She flees to her fort in the woods, after which Dom and his gang of escaped felons invade the cabin and begin to torture the remaining three both mentally and physically. Becky, eventually catching wind of this invasion, begins to take matters into her own hands, using a unique collection of school supplies (colored pencils and a broken ruler) and motorized vehicles (a boat propeller and an ATV) to take down Dom’s crew one by one.
And… that’s basically the movie. There isn’t much more to Becky than that—it’s a ridiculous and gratuitous study of violent revenge, with the added gimmick that the killer is a little blonde girl donning a hat that looks hilariously identical to Louise Belcher’s from “Bob’s Burgers.” The reason for Dom’s invasion is to find a special key he had apparently stashed there before his imprisonment, though the purpose of this object is never quite defined aside from a brief explanation by Dom suggesting some type of racial cleanse or war. It’s essentially the central mystery of the film, and there’s frustration in the fact that it’s never resolved in any satisfying manner and plays second fiddle to the grisly violence.
Arguably the most fascinating aspect of Becky is its casting. In the lead role, Lulu Wilson is raw and fierce, which is not too surprising given her past powerhouse performances in the Mike Flanagan-directed horror film Ouija: Origin of Evil and his subsequent Netflix series, “The Haunting of Hill House.” Joel McHale feels out of place as his douchy persona from “The Soup” and “Community” doesn’t quite work in the role of a caring father. And then there’s Kevin James as a heavily-bearded white supremacist with a massive swastika tattoo on the back of his shaved head. It’s hard not to titter at James’ completely against-type performance; think of it as Paul Blart: Mein Kampf. All jokes aside though, it isn’t a bad performance despite its curious origins, but try your best to stifle your laughter when the 5′ 8″ James stares up at his 6′ 10″ partner, Apex (Robert Maillet) and attempts to be intimidating. The fact that he actually succeeds in this effort might be the most hilarious moment in a film filled with them, whether they were intentional or not.
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