BEAST OF BURDEN is another one of those idiotic single location thrillers that tries to evoke suspense despite having its sole protagonist trapped in a small location for the entire running time. This one has a few flashbacks and extraneous moments and moves outside of the cockpit for the climax, but otherwise it's dark and gloomy and very, very boring. Truth be told, I've not liked any films in this genre, from Tom Hardy's LOCKE to Ryan Reynolds in BURIED, although the ones in which a handful of characters are trapped are more fun (see CUBE or ELEVATOR). I do like Daniel Radcliffe as an actor (he's very good in the right material like MY BOY JACK) but his performance matches the script in this one, i.e. it simply isn't good.

Why do they keep making films of one guy talking on the phone?

Sean (Daniel Radcliffe) is transporting drugs in a small aircraft in a storm to get his wife medicine. The drug runner is the protagonist. He has issues with his wife and the dealers as we watch him chat inside his flight simulator. The boring scenes are interrupted by occasional flashbacks and later by on the ground scenes. Pretty boring stuff.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

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.