The Beekeeper is exactly what you expect from a movie with that title, starring Jason Statham, and released in mid-January under the banner of the current zombie incarnation of Miramax. Statham playing a beekeeper, who kicks everybody’s ass.
Why is a professional beekeeper better at fighting that just about everyone else? The film starts with that question and builds an elaborate world out of it, one that pulls in everything from the FBI to the CIA, to American presidential politics. The script is by Kurt Wimmer, the veteran screenwriter behind the likes of Law Abiding Citizen, Salt, and the remakes of Total Recall and Point Break.
The first act of The Beekeeper could be its own short film. Statham’s a man of mystery who does his beekeeping work in a rural Massachusetts barn that he rents from a retired woman (Phylicia Rashad), who soon falls for a phishing scam that robs her life savings. In the tragic aftermath, Statham gains revenge against the Wolf of Wall Street-style chop shop that carried out the scam, by blowing up their suburban office park.
It seems like the plot has wrapped itself up, but there’s much more to come, with the eventual villain (Josh Hutcherson) a privileged, drug-addled ne’er-do-well who my colleague Bruce Majors has compared to Hunter Biden. There’s also some John Wick-style mumbo jumbo about a secret society of assassins, and cameos from different high government officials.
Minnie Driver shows up for a couple of hilarious scenes as a CIA bigwig, while Jeremy Irons plays a veteran former CIA director who, I’m sure intentionally, is made to look just like Robert Mueller. I’m still not quite clear on whether or not he’s supposed to be the villain’s father.
The film was shot in the U.K., with different locations subbing for Massachusetts, and most of the cast is British as well. And while Irons is very believable as an old-style CIA WASP, the president of the United States is played by an actress so intrinsically British that she’s part of a famous English acting family—and can’t hide her accent.
The action isn’t well-mounted, with an over-reliance on shaky-cam and extreme close-ups in every fight scene. David Ayer, the director, isn’t as good at this as Statham’s usual helmer Guy Ritchie, nor does he handle this sort of action nearly as well as John Wick master Chad Stahelski. But I was laughing for just about the entire movie.
The Beekeeper knows what it’s doing, delivering over-the-top action while not concerning itself with expected storytelling beats. John Wick got revenge on his dog, while Nicolas Cage once spent a whole movie looking for his stolen pig. When Statham’s beloved beehive is gunned down, the film skips right past the usually-obligatory scene where he discovers their death and vows revenge.
There’s so much that isn’t plausible, even when we get beyond how a solitary, usually unarmed 56-year-old man is able to successfully go toe-to-toe with the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, the criminal underworld and various private security and mercenary firms. His final antagonist is a massive, trash-talking British brute who I assume is played by a famous MMA fighter.
Those companies that carry out brazen scams to steal people’s identities tend to be based in Romania and other places far out of the reach of American law enforcement; they’re not usually within easy driving distance of their victims. Blowing up multiple buildings in the greater Boston area leads to more media coverage than we see in this film. The hero also doesn’t, at any point, appear to make any attempt to get the victims their money back. And there’s no way an FBI agent (Emmy Raver-Lampman) would ever be allowed to work directly on the case involving the death of her own mother.
But again, I was had too good a time to get bothered by any of that.
