Last year’s January gem (definition: a trashy B-movie dumped during the winter doldrums that’s way more entertaining than it probably should be) was M3ganand this year is The beekeeper (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video), a ridiculous action movie that finds Jason Statham in a mode so humorless it’s actually funny, which is easily his best mode, and better than whatever he was doing in that nonsense. The mega films. Beekeeper It is directed by David Ayer, who caused a sensation by writing Training Day and directing End of watch before hitting critical rock bottom with an ill-fated foray into DC (2016) Suicide Squad), a science fiction film by Will Smith (Bright) and a movie I didn’t know existed (has anyone seen it? The tax collector?). So this is a return to form for a solid action director who knows where to keep his tongue with stuff like this: in his cheek.
THE BEEKEEPERSTREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: “No one has ever looked after me before.” Such is the sad lament of Adam Clay (Statham), If that really is his real nameBut let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Look, he’s just a humble beekeeper! He’s got the net over his face and overalls and everything. We meet him as he’s removing a hornet’s nest from his bee sanctuary. Hornets hunt and kill bees, see? And the only thing you can do with a hornet’s nest is stick it in a bag and insert a long fluorescent light bulb and tap a taser on the end and ZAP ‘EM. Is this a moment of foreshadowing where we wonder if he’s going to do that to a person later in the film, or at least an illustration of his ability to coldly, clinically kill living things? I’m not going to say. But let’s just say that if Jason Statham is playing a long-faced loner who’s “just a humble beekeeper,” chances are he’s ended human lives before.
At least he has one friend, and it’s Eloise (Phylicia Rashad), who rents him the old barn out back so Adam can tend to the bees, make honey, and sleep, assuming he’s not a robot in human skin who doesn’t sleep, which he might be. She asks him about the hornet’s nest, and he explains what happens when you kick a hornet’s nest, and in case you didn’t know, he falls for a phishing scam and not only loses all his money, but the $2 million he’s managing for a charity that probably benefits sick babies and ocelot kittens with lupus. We jump between her and a call center that does The wolf of Wall Street seems Sesame Streetand it’s full of con artists who laugh every time they siphon some poor old man’s life savings from beneath his digital mattress. The bathroom tile-licker overseeing this operation is Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), a depraved tech rich kid, and we instantly want him vaporized by a death ray from Alpha Centauri, because it’s the only way to be sure.
But that doesn’t happen, because we’re working with a hornet’s nest metaphor, and we consider it a done deal. Now, having recently purchased a small amount of low-cost supermarket honey, and knowing how much it cost me, and therefore deducing how much a guy like Adam might charge per jar of his organic shit, you might think it would take him about two weeks to recover the two million stolen from Eloise, but let’s not pick holes in the plot. Also, Adam doesn’t give off reasonable guy vibes, and our suspicions are confirmed when he walks into the aforementioned call center and single-handedly beats the shit out of anyone who gets in his way and douses the place in gasoline and blows it to smithereens. You can sing it with me: Looks like they messed with the wrong beekeeper.Now drink!
The ensuing incredibly violent drama takes place in a small world where Eloise’s daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman) happens to be an FBI agent who is able to dig through Adam’s file to find out that he used to be some sort of mysterious mega-secret special ops guy (it’s very OPS, isn’t it? Just OPS and OPS oozing out of his pores) and brat Hutcherson happens to be the son of billionaires who employ the former CIA director (Jeremy Irons, exclamation point!) to run a mega-corporation that’s so huge that no one even notices that Hutcherbrat is a crook. I’m telling you, if these characters weren’t so connected, the plot might not work at all, and it also might not turn into a ridiculous cartoon that could teach us a lesson about the dangers of retaliation and escalation if we weren’t laughing out loud at all the highly entertaining violence that follows.
What movies will it remind you of? The beekeeper it is like The mechanic Satisfies Nobody Satisfies John Wick Satisfies Land of honey Satisfies Hard to Kill meet Rambo Movie in which he lives on a piece of land in the middle of nowhere so he can dig an intricate labyrinth of tunnels beneath it, with a juicy Godzilla A reference is included just in case.
Performance worth watching: Statham makes a very serious Here he frowns, as if he were as dead as the Dallas Cowboys. There was a time when I had grown tired of Statham’s mean face, but in retrospect, it was a sad time, and since then, after…To spyI think I learned to appreciate him for his subtle, sarcastic irony.
Memorable dialogue: Adam disguises a threat as an automated sales call:
Adam: You look young. I bet you don’t have estate planning.
Hutcherbrat: I’m 28, what do I need it for?
Adam: I’m about to show you.
Sex and skin: None.
Our opinion: The beekeeper is one of those of course movies. As in, of course He says he is retired and of course He is a veteran of the entire PAHO, and of course He can murder an entire SWAT team with his bare hands, and of course This plot goes all the way to Eff Bee Eye, and then even further, just to make it more ridiculous. Uh huhI kept saying as the plot progressed, Uh huhbetween peals of laughter. The plot thickens, not like your mother standing at the stove stirring and stirring and stirring and stirring the gravy and adding starch as needed, but with a loud clatter as the store-bought gravy slides out of the jar; the film doesn’t have the flavor of high-level craftsmanship of John WickBut it sure does the trick. I don’t know if that metaphor works, but I’m not sure this movie works at all, but it doesn’t mind that it doesn’t work, and I don’t mind that it doesn’t mind, and in fact, it might be more entertaining. because He does not care.
Ayers finds the sweet spot (yes, another rickety metaphor, sue me) between satire and old-school “this is where the law ends and I begin” 80s action trash, complete with gratuitous gore and one-liners. It’s modern in that the criminals who used to deal guns and drugs are replaced by data thieves, one of whom, rather humorously, tries to pay our “hero” with NFTs. Nice try, moron! That guy ends up dying in a very greasy way, and there’s no subtext to it, just an amoral vigilante on a righteous vengeance crusade extinguishing a greasy little turd who deserves it. That kind of stuff is satisfying on a silly, basic level, and that’s why I can’t help but recommend it. The beekeepernot at all against my better judgment.
Our calling: This movie made me feel like I was escaping from everything for about 100 minutes. It was nice. WATCH IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
