The Beekeeper 🐝 REVIEW:

One man's brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after it's revealed he's a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as Beekeepers. Every January, there is just about always an action movie release with a well known action star. These are usually quite dumb and requires its viewers to check their critical thinking skills at the door. Last year’s “Plane” with Gerard Butler was a step above the normal January action fare so naturally I was optimistic that this year’s would be fun as well. I myself have a big soft spot for these disposable brainless action flicks and having personally worked on set with Jason Statham (Expendables 4), I can definitely say that the guy is a natural in this field. Statham is not just a great action star, but he is also a very smart business man who knows exactly what his audience wants. Thankfully, director David Ayer’s The Beekeeper is exactly the kind of turn your brain off, shove popcorn in your face, and laugh along the way guilty pleasure rated R action January movie I was looking for. Statham is a presence in this film and works perfectly as the one note beekeeper Adam Clay. He’s the type of quiet former special ops guy who doesn’t have any real identification and never really talks all that much, except to his neighbor Eloise Parker played by Phylicia Rashad. After Eloise falls for a phishing scam and commits suicide, Clay goes on a rogue mission to exact revenge on those responsible.

Clay seeks to go about exacting revenge in a more let’s just say… aggressive way, while Eloise’s daughter and FBI agent Verona wants to do it by the book. Their different approaches in bringing those responsible to justice creates an interesting rift between the two and it’s this basic simplicity that works to the film’s advantage so well. Emmy Raver-Lampman is pretty good as Agent Verona and serves as the diligent “good cop” to Adam Clay’s more brutally violent methodology. Statham is a force of nature in this film. I mean, early on in the film, Clay literally goes into one of the headquarters of the scammers and just casually starts beating up one of the customer service reps to get everyone else’s attention. It’s a really fun sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the movie. There’s just enough self awareness in Kurt Wimmer’s script so the film doesn’t take itself too seriously and it never ventures off into parody mode, so the hard hitting action scenes are simultaneously badass and as they are hilarious. Josh Hutcherson is a lot of fun as Derek Danforth, the young man in charge of the phishing scheme who cares about nothing else except for money. Him and his cronies are the perfect type of douche bag “crypto bros” for Statham to plow through. While Jeremy Irons doesn’t exactly get to do all that much here, there are very few actors who can perform ridiculous exposition dumps making the analogy of how bees, hornets, hives, and beekeepers have something to do with the structure of secret covert organizations.

The movie is surprisingly funny, with a lot of the humor hinging on Clay’s casually nonchalant way of gruesomely murdering just about everyone who stands in his way. Like I said earlier, it’s self aware and cheesy, but never insincere, as its message of “don’t prey on the weak, vulnerable, and elderly” does get across. There are some brutally visceral fight scenes in here. Every punch and blow can be felt by the viewer. One hand to hand combat sequence towards the end of the film with Statham taking on the “heavy” is particularly well choreographed and exciting to watch. While a majority of the film keeps things simple, there’s about 10 or so minutes as a whole that could’ve been trimmed for an even tighter pace. I also think that some of the ins and outs of the secret organizations could’ve been kept a bit more concrete. You have to accept that the script is fairly cheesy and far fetched. Jason Statham looks after bees, makes honey, and that is 90 percent of his personality here, besides his ability to somehow singlehandedly pummel through entire SWAT teams and mercenaries.

Clay gets into well guarded places in very creative and almost unbelievable ways to the point in which you’ll be like “how wasn’t he caught yet?” So yes, check your critical thinking skills at the theater door for the best experience possible. Although the ending was a bit abrupt, it ultimately really worked for me because it tied up a bunch of loose ends in a quick yet suitable fashion without a bunch of unnecessary dialogue. Overall, it doesn’t break any new ground for the action genre nor does it offer all that much depth, but David Ayer’s The Beekeeper is a simple, brutally action packed, and oftentimes violently hilarious revenge flick that demonstrates what Jason Statham does best: Beating up bad guys and protecting beehives.