The Beekeeper: Jason Statham Actioner Politically Iffy But Relentlessly Entertaining
By Thom Ernst
Rating: B+
The Beekeeper is mindless, overblown nonsense timed perfectly to drag us from a haze of prestige films and an awards bait stupor.
Jason Statham is an ex-member of a classified “hive” of a homeland security operation called the Beekeepers. Adam Clay (Statham) is a ghost, a man with no evidence of ever existing. He now lives peacefully tending bees.
It’s a life choice that no one seems to recognize as ironic. But in the realm of cohort operations, where sleazy con artists bilk old ladies out of their fortunes, rowdy mercenaries invade summer homes, and highly mechanized teams of armed soldiers are useless against Statham’s army of one, a former “beekeeper” becoming a beekeeper is hardly the film’s most significant leap of logic.
Director David Ayer sets up the prologue with Clay as a mellowed tough guy grateful for the kindness shown to him by a saintly older woman named Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad). But if Eloise’s gentle example affected Clay, it was short-lived.
Clay drops the harmonious one-with-the-bees act the moment Eloise dies by suicide after being bilked out of millions. Nothing triggers Clay more than people taking advantage of older people. Mad as hell, Clay tracks down the culprits to a high-tech office space filled with money-grabbing opportunists fronted by a smarmy millennial who leads like an evangelist preaching the gospel of greed.
Ayer hammers home a subtext of ageism, holding the camera on Clay as he pontificates on the vulnerability of older people, their loneliness, and their fear of being forgotten, long enough to consider Statham’s aging — he’s 56 — and his place in the roster of current action heroes. It’s a meta moment that quickly evolves into a formulaic vengeance drama.
The Beekeeper is Statham’s film (he also takes a producer credit), but screen time is distributed amongst villains and police officers. Emmy Raver-Lampman plays Verona Parker, Eloise’s daughter, who happens to be a cop.
Verona has mother issues in that she came second in Eloise’s life to her deceased brother. She, too, wants to avenge her mother’s death, but her dedication to the law requires her to track down and stop Clay. But her relationship with her partner (Bobby Naderi) gives the movie an unexpected charm.
On team villain, there’s Jeremy Irons as Wallace Westwyld, a former C.I.A. director, now the personal fixer for an obscenely wealthy corporation. Westwyld is devoted to his employer, a powerful woman (Jemma Redgrave) who has left the family empire to her wilfully volatile and spoiled son (Josh Hutcherson). From there, the film branches into a complex hive of hired killers, F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents, who are out to stop Clay’s rampage.
The thing is, Clay is not particularly sympathetic. He’s merciless and takes an uneasy amount of pleasure in the death of his enemies. We want him to win; we want to see the bad guys grovel (and they do), but give the film much thought, and you are liable to conclude that the punishment isn’t fitting the crime.
Many of the villains, recognizable by their gaudy expensive suits and gold chain necklaces and have one too many buttons undone on their shirts, come across as pathetic more than they do as criminals worthy of a death sentence.
Ayer doesn’t skimp on a body count and includes several remarkable set pieces. There is a staircase fight scene, which now seems mandatory in action films, and a segment involving an elevator that’s a showstopper.
The Beekeeper plays to its audience, and everyone in the film, including Irons, knows precisely the kind of film they are in: politically irresponsible but relentlessly entertaining. And for that reason, despite its flaws, I award it a B+.
The Beekeeper. Directed by David Ayer. Starring Jason Statham, Jeremy Irons, Phylicia Rashad, Emmy Raver-Lampman, and Bobby Naderi. In theatres now.