Surely, most are familiar with the phrase “Don’t kick the hornet’s nest”, but seldom has the same sense of dire urgency been applied to the human attendant tasked with looking after it as is the case in David Ayer’s “The Beekeeper”.
Belying the stereotype of January as the month where no movie wants to have the stigma of being released in “The Beekeeper” kicks off 2024 powerfully as a surefire contender for one of the best action movies of the year. Indeed, Jason himself says on his Facebook page: “Thank you to everyone for making The Beekeeper the number 1 movie at the worldwide box office for the second week running!”
Combined with David Ayer’s superb direction and Jason Statham’s trademark action hero stoicism, “The Beekeeper” also sets in motion the tale of a much larger world of clandestine assassins and secret government agents.
Trailer
Cast
Jason Statham leads “The Beekeeper” as the movie’s titular beekeeper, Adam Clay, with Emmy Raver-Lampman playing his FBI ally Agent Verona Parker.
Josh Hutcherson and Jeremy Irons also portray the villains of “The Beekeeper”, Derek Danforth and Wallace Westwyld, with Jemma Redgrave playing Danforth’s mother, American President Danforth.
Additionally, Phylicia Rashad portrays Agent Parker’s mother Eloise, with FBI Director Howard.
Plot
On the surface, Adam Clay lives a seemingly unassuming life as a beekeeper, but life takes a tragic turn with his good friend Eloise Parker takes her own life after her charity is defrauded of $2 million by a mysterious online scam group.
While Eloise’s grieving daughter, FBI Agent Verona Parker, dives straight into the case for the FBI, Clay wastes no time in taking matters into his own hands, locating the headquarters of the phishing enterprise and aggressively destroying it.
While Clay’s actions seem like a simple revenge mission to Parker, both she and the scam organization’s heads soon discover the truth – that Adam Clay (whose name itself is an alias) is a “Beekeeper”, a highly-trained operative for a shadowy organization created for the express purpose of protecting the “beehive” of modern society.
In the interest of both personal vengeance and stopping the scammer’s continued activities, Adam’s mission is to locate and take out the heads of the scamming organization, whose connections end up running unexpectedly far into the U.S. government.
Action
“The Beekeeper” is Jason Statham at His Jason Stathamest
Since breaking out as an action star in the early 2000’s, Jason Statham has cultivated a screen persona all his own, that of pure, grizzled cockney impenetrability made into a man.
Even by the extent to which he’s previously embodied that in “The Transporter”, “Expendables”, and “Fast & Furious” franchises, Jason Statham’s Adam Clay is one of the most indomitable action movie tough guys he’s ever portrayed.
Even with that said, Adam Clay is a very different beast from most Statham protagonists, though the term best remains wholly applicable.
Compared to his past anti-heroes like Frank Martin and Deckard Shaw, Adam Clay is an unusually stalwart protagonist by Statham standards.
He might be personally motivated by a quest for vengeance over Eloise’s death, but he’s also a man on a mission of genuine societal concern and an oath he’s taken as a Beekeeper to clean up society’s hive – that being a task Adam wastes no time in embarking upon.
“The Beekeeper” Gets Rolling Fast
The aforementioned stereotype of January movies being inert, lackluster slogs is one that “The Beekeeper” handles the same way that Adam Clay handles the call center duping unsuspecting innocent people into giving away their life savings, and with the same explosive prejudice.
“The Beekeeper” is every bit as action-packed and fast-paced as its trailer presents it to be and then some.
Director David Ayer knows how to keep an action movie’s momentum both fast and streamlined, keeping the buildup of Adam’s mission going as he makes a beeline to each target on his mission all the way to the literal top of the hive’s food chain. And on that note…
“The Beekeeper” is Jason Statham’s Best Action Movie in Years
With such a tightly focused story and script (and one that still paradoxically makes the complex beehive that is modern society integral to its story), “The Beekeeper” is the best Jason Statham action movie in years, and easily in his overall top 10.
The movie’s fight scenes and gun battles have all the power, finesse, and frequency of Statham’s first leading man outing in “The Transporter”, and quite a few have even an added shock value to them.
Adam’s blazing brawl of taking down an entire SWAT team single-handedly is a short but amazingly sweet action beat, while “The Beekeeper” also makes versatile use of his skills in other set pieces.
Adam’s barnyard confrontation with the scammer’s henchmen is right out of “The Night Comes For Us” school of bringing slasher movie potency to an action movie fight scene, while the finale of Adam storming the Queen Bee’s hive in a surprisingly literal sense brings some of the most intricate and electrifying fight choreography of the movie, all courtesy of fight coordinator Jeremy Marinas of 87 Eleven Action Design.
In the midst of all the early New Year action movie fireworks, “The Beekeeper” also seems to have another bee in its bonnet.
Could “The Beekeeper” be the Next “John Wick”?
However cliché it might seem to compare the latest break-out action movie hit to the “John Wick” franchise, “The Beekeeper” earns that badge of honor on multiple levels.
The sheer visceral, dynamic ride “The Beekeeper” takes viewers on is cut right from the “John Wick” cloth, but it also endeavors in world-building in its own way.
With Beekeepers like Adam, a shadowy cabal of assassins, “The Beekeeper” gets the ball rolling on countless possibilities for how to build out the franchise in innumerable directions.
Adam’s thunderous gas station brawl with a colorful fellow Beekeeper itself pulls back the curtain on just how vast the hive is and how many are tasked with maintaining order within it.
Add in the hints of Beekeeper lore sprinkled throughout the movie’s abundant world-building and action scenes, and “The Beekeeper 2” doesn’t just seem like a foregone conclusion, but one that also just scratches the surface of a vast honeycomb.
Summary
You’ll never look at beekeepers the same way again after “The Beekeeper”, and that’s thoroughly in the favor of the Jason Statham-led actioner.
Martial arts brawls, stunts, and bullet ballets are a-plenty in “The Beekeeper”, but the icing on the cake is the fact that Adam Clay clearly is prepped for his next several missions. “The Beekeeper” Cinematic Universe, here we come!
Favourite Quotes
- “Stealing from an old person is like stealing from a child, maybe worse. When someone steals from a child, their parents step in, they have people to protect them. Steal from an old person, they’re left to face the hornets’ nest alone.” – Adam Clay (speaking to Agent Parker on the defrauding and death of her mother Eloise.)
- “For someone whose elevated f***ing up into an art form, this might well be your Mona Lisa.” – Wallace Westwyld (to Derek Danforth on his mistake of angering Adam Clay.)
- “You have laws for these things until they fail. Then you have me.” – Adam Clay (to Agent Parker.)
- “You decide who you work for -the law, or justice.” – Adam Clay (to Agent Parker.)
Trivia
- Screenwriter Kurt Wimmer also wrote and directed the 2002 sci-fi action movie “Equilibrium”, for which Wimmer famously created the cinematic martial art “Gun Kata”.
- At one point, Jason Statham was considered for the role of Floyd Lawton a.k.a. Deadshot in David Ayer’s 2016 DC superhero film “Suicide Squad”, though Will Smith ultimately assumed the role.
- Some of Jeremy Marinas’ other credits as stunt man or fight choreographer include; “The Expendables 2”, “The Wolverine”, “Brothers”, “Captain America: Civil War”, “Gemini Man”, “Birds of Prey”, “Prey”, “Silent Night”, and “John Wick: Chapter 4”. Additionally, Jeremy Marinas has also had on-camera roles in movies like “Man of Tai Chi” and “Close Range”, in which he’s had major fight scenes with Tiger Chen and Scott Adkins.
The Beekeeper – movie poster – KUNG FU KINGDOM
