Is The Beekeeper the latest Jason Statham action thriller? Or is it 100 minutes of violent revenge porn against call centre scammers? Honestly… it’s a bit of both, and that’s not a bad thing at all!
Gritty action filmmaker David Ayer (End of Watch, Suicide Squad) teams up for the first time with British action star Jason Statham for this explosive action thriller that centres around a beekeeper. Yes, quite literally, Jason Statham’s character, Adam Clay, lives a quite life as a beekeeper. However, that quite life has its volume dial turned up to 11 when Eloise, the lady who owns the land of which Adam keeps his bees, is scammed out of $2 million from her own charity organisation. Devastatingly, this leads to Eloise taking her own life, which takes Adam on a warpath of justice that unveils a secret life he lived before beekeeping.
That life was… also being a Beekeeper. But Adam wasn’t harvesting honey as a Beekeeper. He was harvesting souls for a mysterious organisation that supersedes the FBI itself, with one directive for their one-man armies – protect the hive. Using the help of the Beekeepers, Adam discovers this scam call centre is run by douchebag technology entrepreneur Derek (Josh Hutcherson), fraudulent business practices have connections with the United States government, making Adam’s mission for revenge even more complicated than expected.
There is nothing about The Beekeeper that will see this action-thriller withstand the test of cinematic time like other films in its genre, ala John Wick. However, unlike the countless other throwaway type films in the genre, The Beekeeper does the simple things incredibly right to be an enjoyable experience, and even better, not a waste of your time.
Usually known for grittier, darker action films set in L.A. (Training Day and End of Watch), The Beekeeper doesn’t necessarily have any of the staples of director David Ayer’s filmmaking style. This is a far more cleaner looking film, both in terms of location and cinematography, than a lot of Ayer’s frantic and intensely shot filmography. And that works in favour of The Beekeeper because it’s still a competently well-made flick that has exciting, explosive, and at times quite brutal, set pieces that showcases Ayer’s ability to be varied and flexible in the way he presents action as a director.
Combining Ayer’s ability to capture the excitement, and Jason Statham’s well established action star prowess, leads to some damn entertaining moments. Statham’s cocky charm and physical tenacity allow him to do such things as casually walk into a multi-million dollar building with two jerry cans of gasoline, beat up a bunch of dickhead security guards, and then blow the whole damn place up, all with a twinkle in his eye and a cheeky grin on his face. And that is just the start of some of the unique ways Statham comes up with to kill these scamming bastards throughout The Beekeeper, most of them more often that not to darkly comedic effect. It’s fist fights, explosions, car chases and shootouts galore, and Statham, as always, holds his own.
The true highlight of this film is the incredibly out of turn performance from Josh Hutcherson as the painfully arrogant Derek. Even just the name is enough to make your skin crawl, but it’s Hutcherson’s complete dedication to the bit of “supreme fuck-boi” that sells Derek through and through. The performance is caricature-enough to feel as over-the-top as it needs to be for a film like this, but never to the point where it is a detriment to the small level of believability required to ground the story as much as it can be.
Of which the story is pretty damn ridiculous. The Beekeepers as an organisation has a John Wick aesthetic to it, with punk-rock costuming and analogue-era technology being to boot. While not much is revealed about The Beekeepers, it’s explained enough for this singular story, but would absolutely need more substance to it on the chance a franchise is on the horizon. But, having a secret organisation, that is more powerful than the government, offer services to a former employee because of call centre scammers… well it’s a reach. And it’s reached for pretty hard by writer Kurt Wimmer. But again, similar to Hutcherson’s performance, it’s the dedication to the bit that creates a decent level of enjoyment on screen.
The Beekeeper is ultimately 100-minutes of Jason Statham kicking ass because he hates call centre scammers, but it’s a damn entertaining 100-minutes at that. Despite it’s ridiculous story and convoluted character ties, The Beekeeper utilises the strengths of David Ayer as a kinetic director, and Jason Statham as a bona fide action star, along with an unexpectedly great change-up performance from Josh Hutcherson, to be a decent time at the cinemas.
The Beekeeper is in cinemas January 11.
