The Beekeeper: Jason Statham Delivers an Action Flick With Honey and Sting

MOVIE INFO:

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”.

REVIEW:

At some point in The Beekeper, starring Jason Statham and directed by David Ayer, a villain delivers the inevitable to BEE or not to be pun. He is quickly dispatched, Shakespeare being the last refuge of all cinematic scoundrels. You can make a drinking game of some of the Bee cliches uttered. Protect the hive in particular, is mentioned enough times, to get anyone utterly sotted.

The plot is the typical Jason Statham on a rampage extravaganza. The itch that causes the outbreak- an international scamming ring with some very high up political connections duping seniors of their life savings. The suicide of one particularly nice granny (Phyllicia Rashad), who treated Statham like a son, is the gasoline that ignites the glass structure destruction. Here, Statham is a retired “Beekeeper”, secret operatives who exist to correct the ship of government when democracy goes seriously sideways. The whole thing is John Wick without the style and charming repartee. For Statham fans, that is more than enough to give them value for their money.

The villains are cartoon villains being their stupid selves. Only, Jeremy Irons, as the villain’s fallback lawyer and primary organizational brain, says and does anything particularly memorable. Statham goes through all of them like the reliable and efficient death totem he always is in these movies. The fight choreography is bludgeoning with occasional interesting variations thrown in. One has a goon flung over the camera and followed tumbling down the long stairwell in one graceful shot. Also, the sound of the punches can be startling. When a heavy (Taylor James) slides on brass knuckles and connects, the sound of the blow was so startling that I jumped (and giggled).

The Beekeeper only goes stale when it tries to explain its plot, when it gives up its action inanity for being sensible. The political moral debates about law and disorder are eye glazing and go nowhere. Emmy Raver-Lampman, as the almost FBI sidekick trying to get legal justice for her dead grandmother, is too serious to be any kind of dramatic or even comic relief. The only inside joke that I thought was funny and describes The Beekeeper– the shoulder patches on the camo-clad avenging squadron spell out BS.