The Beekeeper review

The Beekeeper is the kind of movie Jason Statham can do in his sleep.  It’s his standard dude with a special set of skills action bonanza with some thrilling gun play, complex grappling and body-rattling kicks.

Don’t hold Statham’s sticking to what he does best on the big screen against him. The Beekeeper is another solid entry in Statham’s action hero library. While it wasn’t a mammoth box office hit, there’s enough here to suggest there’s some decent franchise opportunities.

The film starts off simple enough. Statham (Fast X) plays Adam Clay, a beekeeper enjoying his retirement. Clay has his hive set up next to a kindly, elderly neighbor, Eloise (Phylicia Rashad, Creed III), who falls prey to an online scam that wipes out all her savings.

Director David Ayer (Bright) mines this moment perfectly to rile up viewers as an office pool boss (David Witts) delighting in showing the office drones exactly how to digitally pillage an unsuspecting victim’s hard-earned nest egg. It’s skillfully done in framing some of the more loathsome they’ve really got it coming to them bad guys on screen in a while.

Horrified at her actions, Eloise has an extreme reaction. This did feel somewhat over the top especially since Eloise didn’t contact her FBI agent daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman, Gatlopp). After a brief misunderstanding, Parker lets Clay go after realizing he had nothing to do with her mother’s death.

Parker shares that Eloise got caught in a scam, which is all Clay needed to hear to go seek some righteous payback. Statham has plenty of charisma, yet films where he’s barely talking tend to be his best roles. Maybe it’s that whole brooding, mysterious stranger angle that works so well for him?

Clay wastes little time tracking down the office crew that suckered Eloise. He was fine leaving it at an explosively stern warning, but the real culprit behind the scam, Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson, Five Nights at Freddy’s), decides to escalate the issue. That doesn’t work out too well for Derek’s crew.

Sporting a frosted tips hairstyle, Hutcherson is great as the spoiled rich kid with an attitude that makes Derek immensely slappable.  As long as he’s got his share of drugs, money and women, Derek doesn’t care who gets squashed along the way. Derek would have spiraled out a long time ago if it weren’t for his handler Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons, The Flash). Irons is always a reliable presence, and he makes a terrific voice of reason for Hutcherson’s impetuous and bratty Derek.

That includes putting out calls to allies in government agencies (Minnie Driver) and hiring ill-matched private security teams. Ayer properly escalates the threats against Clay. Each one is more menacing and deadly in their own right than the next.

The action choreography is very effective. Not every shoot ’em up/martial arts film needs to just do its spin on John Wick style elaborate action pieces. Ayer is a confidant director who sets up the sequences in a way that smartly showcases Statham.

One aspect that doesn’t quite work is Agent Parker’s subplot. Sure, she could be really devoted to her job and the whole pursuit of justice, but it didn’t seem plausible she’d be leading the charge to bring Clay in. Especially since he’s the one person able to break the rules Parker couldn’t to avenge her mother. Perhaps having Parker work on the inside to aide Clay and subtly sabotage her fellow agents’ efforts to stop Clay would have made more sense?

Screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (Total Recall) leaned too hard on the quirky dynamic with Parker and her agent partner Wiley (Bobby Naderi delivering a strong supporting performance). That snarky, playful banter could work in basically any other setting except for the one where Parker just lost her mother 24 hours ago. And it also was probably a major conflict of interest having Parker be the lead agent on a case that involved her mother’s death.

A subplot involving Derek’s mother (Jemma Redgrave, Dr. Who) has a very solid payoff culminating in an explosive and satisfying final act.

The Beekeeper isn’t vying for Best Picture Oscar awards, but definitely makes good on all it promises. Statham looking like one of the coolest dudes alive getting some good old fashion payback against waves and waves of goons before taking down their obnoxious boss.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: MGM

Pick up The Beekeeper on Blu-Ray at Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.