The Beekeeper (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – In The Beekeeper, one man’s brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as “Beekeepers”.

My Take – Between driving fast cars, hanging out with other action stars and punching prehistoric sharks, Jason Statham has been keeping himself quite busy the last few years, irrespective of the fact that most of these features he chooses to star in are utterly irredeemable mostly just wasting his incredible talents and characteristic charm.

Yet, by now, as audiences we have come to realize what to expect when it comes to a Statham starrer, with the only difference being the quality of deliverance. In the sense, how Wrath of Man (2021) differs from Meg 2: The Trench (2023).

His latest sees him continue his long-running legacy of action flicks in the form of a gripping tale of vengeance against call center scammers, and thankfully despite being written by Kurt Wimmer (Expend4bles), the result is surprisingly quite good.

Yes, it may not be his most riveting feature, but there is a lot of fun to be had within the chaos. Primed as Jason Statham’s version of the John Wick franchise, here, director David Ayer (End of Watch, Suicide Squad) serves 105 minutes of relentless, pure escapist fun, with British action star doing what he does best i.e. taking out bad guys and looking cool while doing it. He does that here in spades, in the most brutal and ridiculously entertaining ways.

Sure, it isn’t as tight or condensed as the films it borrows from thanks to an unexpectedly dense mythology but it really delivers where it counts. In a crowded landscape of equally desperate imitators, it makes a more persuasive case than most. Indeed, Jason Statham’s bee-obsessed Adam Clay has the makings of yet another iconic character who manages to provide a satisfying cinematic experience that will keep viewers engaged and excited.

The story follows Adam Clay (Jason Statham), who lives a quiet life as a beekeeper, keeping to himself with the only exception being his landlady, Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), an elderly teacher who lives in an isolated farmhouse. Clay keeps bees, housing them in hives on the side of the road and extracting and jarring the honey in Eloise’s shed.

One evening, when delivering a jar of said honey to Eloise, Clay finds her dead on the floor of her living room, having committed suicide after she is scammed out of $2 million from her savings and the charity organization she works for. Though, Eloise’s daughter Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman), an FBI Agent, immediately arrests Clay, upon release he is informed that the group that robbed Eloise has been under the FBI’s radar for a while, but has been proven difficult to track.

With Verona pessimistic that justice will ever be brought, Clay decides to take matters in his own hands, by contacting his previous employers, the Beekeepers, a mysterious organization of special agents that operates above the law when the law is not enough.

Who send him down a warpath that leads directly to Derek (Josh Hutcherson), a greedy, foul-mouthed well connected tech bro, and his protector Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), the former CIA director, who decide do everything necessary to mobilize a defense against the oncoming Beekeeper onslaught.

As one would expect, the rest of the film is about Adam Clay punching, shooting and exploding his way to the top of the phishing conspiracy, taking out goons and sawing fingers off of sniveling phone scammers. There’s even a scene where a female beekeeper uses a mini-gun mounted on the back of a truck.

Despite it’s ridiculous story and convoluted character ties, the utilities the strengths of David Ayer as a kinetic director, and Jason Statham as a bona fide action star and delivers an entertaining addition to the action genre.

The film is mainly concerned with the violent aspects of bees and beekeeping: Clay’s obsession with putting the collective above himself at all costs, battles between bees and hornets, and repeated references to a real-world phenomenon wherein a regular worker bee can become a queen slayer to protect the genetic future of her hive.

The action comes at you thick and fast, and quite frankly is great fun to sit through, and it works in favor because it’s 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.

There’s also a bit of fun world building: Clay calls in to a headquarters where chat bubbles show up as little honeycomb hexagons, and the way certain characters talk about Beekeepers, it’s clear they’ve run up against a formidable foe. The film incorporates a plethora of bee puns and bee-related teaching, injecting humor into the otherwise intense narrative. This lighthearted approach adds a unique flavor to the film, making it stand out in a sea of conventional action films.

Performance wise, Jason Statham shows why he is placed in these roles so often. It’s difficult to see another actor in a role like this, where his husky voice lends to the role of a man on a brutal mission so perfectly. His cocky charm and physical tenacity allow him to do such things as casually walk into a multi-million dollar building with two cans of gasoline, beat up a bunch of security guards, and then blow the whole damn place up, all with a twinkle in his eye and a cheeky grin on his face.

Emmy Raver-Lampman and Bobby Naderi are commendable. Josh Hutcherson seems to be having fun with his utterly unlikable character, Jeremy Irons is elegant as always, Jemma Redgrave and Phylicia Rashad are effective, sadly, Minnie Driver is underused. On the whole, ‘The Beekeeper’ is a fun explosive action thriller that is unpretentious and gloriously over-the-top.