Whenever a comedy actor takes on an against-type role, you should stop whatever you’re doing and check it out. It’s not often that resident funnymen and Happy Madison mainstays like Kevin James get to show their sadistic side. When they do, you get to see their full range at play. I slept on 2020’s Becky due to its limited distribution, an unfortunate side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I finally got around to watching Kevin James take on the role of a jailbroken neo-Nazi named Dominick who’s more than willing to chop up an entire family if they don’t cooperate after he breaks into their lakefront home.
As strong as Kevin James is in a role I genuinely didn’t think he had in him, Becky’s real reason to exist is its eponymous character, portrayed by Lulu Wilson, who was only 14 years old while filming this egregiously violent action thriller. Her kills (relax, they’re in self defense) are enough to make any grown man sick to their stomach. When you realize she’s basically Louise Belcher from Bob’s Burgers armed with found weapons, there’s a sick sense of humor at work that feels intentional, even though Becky is not billed as a comedy.
Getting Away From It All
Becky 2020
Becky starts out like any strained family outing, with our 13-year-old protagonist heading to a vacation home with her father. Becky is your typical angsty teenager, but for good reason. Her mother recently passed away from cancer, and her father, Jeff (Joel McHale), has already moved on. Their fragile relationship takes another hit when Jeff announces that he’s going to marry his new girlfriend, Kayla (Amanda Brugel), and welcome her son, Ty (Isaiah Rockcliffe), into the family.
Fortunately for Becky, she escapes to her treehouse to sulk as escaped convicts Dominick (Kevin James), Apex (Robert Maillet), and Cole (Ryan McDonald) arrive on the property looking for a hidden key believed to be in the basement. They quickly apprehend Jeff, Kayla, and Ty, but suspect someone else is on the property. Jeff denies that Becky is there, but once they find her belongings, they know he’s lying, which leads to his torture.
Becky 2020
Meanwhile, Becky taunts the criminals through her walkie talkie while forming a plan to subdue Dominick and his goons. Dominick, however, is not the type to go down quietly. As the sun sets and the fire starts blazing, Becky gears up Home Alone style and embarks on a bloody rampage that would make John Wick proud.
Lulu Wilson Is Brutal In Becky
Donning an orange knitted animal hat, Lulu Wilson bears a striking resemblance to Louise Belcher, and her increasingly unhinged behavior in the film’s second and third acts only drives that comparison home. One by one, she tracks down Dominick, Apex, and Cole, showing zero mercy as she attempts to reclaim her family’s property from their unwanted presence. Using whatever she can get her hands on, including art supplies, water guns filled with gasoline, and various motorized contraptions, Becky goes in for the kill with almost comic levels of glee.
Becky 2020
What makes Becky so unsettling is how straight faced she remains while carrying out some truly horrific, yet totally justified, acts against her captors. If you have angsty teenagers of your own, they’ve got nothing on Becky, who seems to be getting just a little too much enjoyment out of the carnage in between what I can only describe as traumatized war cries. When self preservation becomes the only means of survival, all bets are off, and Becky knows it.
I’ll admit that I originally clicked on Becky while scrolling through Paramount+ just to see if Kevin James could convincingly play the bad guy. Spoiler alert, he absolutely can. I stuck around because Lulu Wilson is so frightening that I was half convinced she’d come and find me if I turned it off.