THE BEEKEEPER (2024)

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: David Ayer
Cast: Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Minnie Driver, Phylicia Rashad, Jeremy Irons
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Rating: M18 (Coarse Language and Some Violence)
Released By: Encore Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 11 January 2024

Synopsis: After retiring from The Beekeepers, a covert elite organization, Adam Clay lives a solitary life caring for his bees. However, when his elderly neighbor is swindled out of her life savings with tragic consequences, Adam Clay is thrust back into action. Determined to seek justice for his neighbor, Clay uncovers a web of deadly scams orchestrated by a powerful organization preying on society's most vulnerable. As he battles FBI agents, 21st century con artists and even his own replacement within The Beekeepers, Clay's mission evolves into something larger: exposing a pervasive system of corruption that threatens society as a whole.

Movie Review:

In this David Ayer directed actioner, Jason Statham stars as literally a Beekeeper, Adam Clay. Aside from keeping his beloved bees from hornets, extracting honey, Clay’s only friend is an elderly woman, Eloise who happens to be his landlady.

Certainly, our dear beekeeper is no ordinary beekeeper and once Eloise kills herself after losing all her money in a phishing scam, Clay spring into action and sets out to burn down a data center and vows to destroy the organization and people behind it.

After writing the gigantic misfire called Expend4ables, Kurt Wimmer is back laying his hands on yet another Statham vehicle. Only this time, Wimmer did a far more serviceable job concocting a story about a mysterious group of agents operating out of the normal reporting chain of command known as the beekeepers. Their mission is to protect the hive at all costs and to take down the Queen bee if anything goes wrong.

It’s whole lot of bees analogy, metaphor and bee references liked “I’m a beekeeper. I protect the hive. Sometimes I use fire to smoke out the hornets”. Slick enough for Statham’s character to mouth the lines and deliver his kills but probably too silly for the much smarter group of audiences.

Anyway, if you are wondering who is the main baddie here. It’s a scumbag named Derek Danforth played by Josh Hutcherson who has sort of have a career revival in the recent box office hit, Five Nights at Freddy’s. Apparently, Danforth comes from a very wealthy and prestigious family. Very prestigious by the way. He has a protector of sorts, an ex-director of CIA, Wallace (played by Jeremy Irons) who is ready to pull some strings to steer Derek away from danger.

Together in the chase after Clay is FBI Agent Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman) who happens to be the daughter of Eloise and her fumbling partner, Agent Wiley (Bobby Naderi) and countless other disposable special agents and forces which leads us to veteran fight coordinator Jeremy Marinas (John Wick Chapter 4, Silent Night) who is here to ensure the various fight sequences and brawls are exhilarating and over-the-top. Frankly, for a 105 minutes movie, the action amounts to more than 80 percent of it. And that’s a lot considering the efficient runtime. Finally, it’s time to give the editor and cinematographer some credit for giving us some well-shot and edited visuals.

Statham who spent most of his early career in straight-to-videos, Luc Besson productions and other low-budgeted Lionsgate titles finally hit the big time in The Fast and Furious and The Meg franchise. However, its movies liked The Beekeeper who remains his bread and butter. Straight up, nonsensical actioners blended with his trademark gruff and dry humour that works mostly every time. Despite the unbelievable plotting and the inhuman power of Adam Clay, we strongly recommend you sign up for the Beekeeper program. Finally a David Ayer movie that comes without the off-screen dramedy.

Movie Rating:

(This Jason Statham action vehicles delivers! One “hive” of a fun trip)

Review by Linus Tee