The Beekeeper [Review]
David Ayer’s latest directorial effort is better than his last three films, but is that good enough?
Jason Statham as Adam Clay, the Beekeeper. Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios
The Beekeeper is about Jason Statham joylessly murdering waves of techbro phishing scammers, private security, mercenaries, and Secret Service agents. He plays titular beekeeper Adam Clay, a retired operator from a super double secret extrajudicial government program (incidentally also called Beekeepers) designed to maintain a healthy societal status quo when the CIA, FBI, and anyone else can’t; he’s the most dangerous man in the United States, and while he was active his only directive was to “protect the hive.”
Statham’s Clay rents space from Eloise (Phylicia Rashad), an innocent old lady, where he tends to his beehives and lives a quiet life. When Eloise is victimized by phishing scammers for all she’s worth as well as a $2 million charity account, she kills herself in desperation and sets Clay on a mission of revenge going all the way to the top. Things get slightly complicated—rather ineffectually—by Eloise’s daughter, FBI Special Agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman), who is tracing Clay’s path of destruction as an audience surrogate.
Emmy Raver-Lampman as Agent Verona Parker. Image credit: Jay Maidment / Amazon MGM Studios
The film never fully dips into self parody. It’s fairly straightforward, until occasionally we get wild tonal shifts where something cartoonishly hamfisted or ridiculous is introduced (and sometimes killed). I wish the movie either fully committed to the bit or kept it serious aside from its unavoidable action one-liners and cliches. Waffling between both tones just didn’t work. The fault here likely lies with both Kurt Wimmer’s screenplay and David Ayer’s direction.
Josh Hutcherson chews the scenery and has a great time playing villainous techbro CEO brat Derek Danforth. His security head is an ex-CIA director played by Jeremy Irons, who looks like he’s phoning it in, but to be fair he’s not given much to work with. Minnie Driver is given nothing to do in her appearance as the current CIA director.
Josh Hutcherson stars as Derek Danforth. Image credit: Daniel Smith / Amazon MGM Studios
The ridiculous story simply stands in as a framework to guide how and when Statham’s character gets to wreak havoc. Those action scenes are mostly well choreographed close quarters combat that are suitably brutal. They work well to keep up Statham’s brand of playing powerful, grimacing, unstoppable murder machines. When the movie gets to this stuff, it’s at its most effective and fun. Who doesn’t want to see scummy dudes who prey on the elderly get beat up?
The Beekeeper is indeed better than any Ayer film since Fury. At least two are unwatchably awful, so the bar isn’t very high. The movie is under two hours, short enough to not wear out its welcome; I had a good time. Still, every time there’s a new Ayer movie I get my hopes up that he’s going to return to his prime with something like End of Watch or his screenplay for Training Day. This isn’t that movie.
The Beekeeper opens in theaters on January 12.
Overall Score: 4/10
Unfortunately, in The Beekeeper Jason Statham is not made of bees
