zardoz-13 Review of Beast of Burden

Beast of Burden (2018)

The Burden of this Beast Is Not Worth Bearing

[3/10 · 30 November 2020]

Poor Daniel Radcliffe finds himself between an aerial rock and a hard place in director Jesper Ganslandt's "Beast of Burden" as a DEA informant who is flying contraband narcotics from Mexico across the U.S. border. A dishonorably discharged USAF pilot who has cut a deal with the Feds to rat out the cartel, our conflicted hero Sean spends most of his time airborne struggling to sort things out. If he cooperates with the DEA, he can get medical help for his ailing wife. The Cartel and the DEA keep exerting pressure on him as he flies through stormy weather. Far from being heroic, Sean is sympathetic, but he has gotten himself into a quandary from which he cannot extricate himself. The pressure mounts but "Beast of Burden" becomes a beastly burden more for the spectator than for our hero. Despite its minimum 90 minute run time, this tiresome movie seems to drag on forever. Whatever potential this intriguing saga had, it loses by confining itself primarily to Sean in the air. Clearly, whether they knew it or not, "Beast of Burden" resembles the Tom Hardy movie "Locke," but the Hardy hero was admirable whereas the Radcliffle protagonist is far from admirable. The worst thing about this awful law and order movie is that you know everything is either shot with miniatures and/or green screen. We're this not bad enough, Ganslandt jumbles the action in non-linear fashion to heighten the action, but it just adds to the confusion. Skip this shallow, second-rate saga.