Rating: Bee (really, you expected anything else?)
Dir: David Ayer
Star: Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Jeremy Irons
I’m prepared to anoint writer Kurt Wimmer as the go-to guy when you want your film to contain copious amounts of ludicrous, yet entertaining violence. Equilibrium would be the poster child for the concept, or see also Ultraviolet and Salt. This is right in the same wheelhouse, providing a daft yet thoroughly enjoyable experience. If you can imagine John Wick discovering he has a social conscience, and going after the scummy elite who leech off honest, hard-working folk, you’ll be getting there. That it can trigger The Daily Beast into writing an article with the po-faced title, “Are the Politics of Jason Statham’s ‘Beekeeper’ Actually Dangerous?”, is merely a side of delicious tasting gravy.
Adam Clay (Statham) goes into action after his neighbour is taken for every penny she has by cybercrooks, operating under the control of Derek Danforth (Hutcherson), and subsequently commits suicide. Adam has the means, motive and opportunity to make Derek pay, being a retired operative for a super-deep government program, the Beekeepers, whose agents were empowered to “protect the hive” of society, by any means they see fit. Which in this case, involves destroying Danforth’s operations from the ground up. This is despite the target’s top-shelf connections, including former CIA director Wallace Westwyld (Irons, reprising his “great British actor slumming it in an action movie” role from Die Hard with a Vengeance), and Derek’s mother, who was recently elected President.
Hmm. President with a useless, druggy son whose shady business operations are a PR nightmare? Nah, no possible parallels to that in the real world. Besides, we’re here simply to see Statham kicking arse, and he delivers in the same crisp, efficient manner he has been doing for more than twenty years now. This is entirely righteous anger, directed at villains who thoroughly deserve the pummeling they will receive at the hands of Clay. Weirdly, every single cybercrook is a white American. That there is not an Indian to be found among them, may be the least realistic aspect of the whole movie. Well, this and the bizarre South African merc with one leg, who appears to be cosplaying as a bee. I kid you not.
The film is a bit less successful when it drifts away from the core dynamic. Most obviously, FBI agent Verona Parker (Raver-Lampman), who is also the daughter of the suicide, though her grief appears entirely limited to one (1) night of binge drinking. She appears capable of figuring out the whole Beekeeper thing in a day or two, even though Westwyld says its mere existence was kept from him, when he was head of the CIA. I did like the way the current Beekeepers eventually go, “Nah… you have fun with that”, after being asked to help out. Smart bees. Not even someone saying “I detect some British Isles hiding in your accent” to Jason Statham, can derail the simple pleasures to be mined from this bee-movie.