Yes, I’m going to say it again. Jason Statham makes everything better. Even in a dog of a flick, he’s worth watching (talking to you MEG 2: THE TRENCH). But when he’s in a well-crafted action flick that’s as fun as it is unpredictable, well, that’s darn near nirvana. And so it is with THE BEEKEEPER, a film in which good and evil are neatly drawn, mostly, and Mr. Statham is as steely-eyed and unflappable as ever but with an unexpected vulnerability. Not, I hasten to add, when taking out the opposition.
This time out he’s Adam Clay, retired from a super-secret government agency, The Beekeepers, to lead a quiet, bucolic life keeping actual bees and destroying the hornets who threaten them with efficient ingenuity. Just like the way he will fracas his way through the people who get in his way as he takes revenge on the villains who scammed the nurturing widow (Phylicia Rashad) whose barn he rents out of her life savings >and< the charity fund she managed. She kills herself in despair and Adam, whom she had invited to dinner, is found with the body and a big knife in the remote house by her daughter, FBI agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman). After suitable apologies from Verona when he is cleared, and a lovely, quiet scene where much about each is revealed, Adam takes it upon himself to get justice from the call center who scammed her.
But, of course, that’s just the start. The call center was just part of a data mining empire run by Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), the entitled mama’s boy and archetype of tech mogul eccentricity and sociopathy, skateboarding through his posh headquarters the way he has skateboarded through a life of no consequences. The circle of culpability grows, a government assassin is called in, and much about beekeeping is explained. Also explained is The Beekeeper program. It’s egregious exposition but delivered by Jeremy Irons as Derek’s chief of security, who is also both the former head of the CIA and a walking growl of irritation. His gravely yet somehow dulcet tones invest this exercise with the right whiff of gravitas, filling the time until Adam once again does the impossible taking out scads of opponents in varying numbers, none of whom glom on to what their up against until it’s too late. Much too late.
We are not taxed with shades of culpability here from the villains of the piece, a situation that puts us in the uncomfortable position of taking a bit too much delight in how, for example, two call-center managers, both the epitome of weenie-hood, are given their just desserts. Gruesomely. The idea of cleaning up the gene pool comes to mind when witnessing what happens to them. Fortunately, Adam has taken the ultimate decision out of our hands, and so when he takes out the ci–mentioned government assassin who sports a pink metallic trench coat, an effusive Mohawk, and an effulgent can-do attitude, we can go along for the ride and tell ourselves that it’s only a movie.
What is interesting here is being confronted with the difference between justice and the law. Sure, it gives us one of the flick’s great catch phrases, as in “When the law fails then you have me” as the justification for vigilantism. We also have Verona, an FBI agent who, through the sort of coincidences necessary for a film like this, is assigned to the case of tracking down Adam. Yeah, it’s a coincidence, but handled with a finesse so as to make it almost plausible, just like the way Adam infiltrates the requisite hoity-toity bash where he will end Derek once and for all. That there is a bash going on while Derek knows he’s being hunted by a beekeeper strains credulity, but credulity is not why we go to a Jason Statham film.
Thank goodness that Verona and her partner, Matt Wylie (Bobby Naderi) have a relationship based on pointed bantering and bald truth, qualities that will come in handy as they follow Adam down the rabbit hole of an ever-expanding investigation that, naturally, leads to the heart of power. They keep the film grounded while providing both the heart and the comic relief.
THE BEEKEEPER indulges in all sorts of bee-centric metaphors. It’s more than a mere conceit. At certain points as Adam and Irons, ahem, drone on about maintaining the hive, there are hints of brainwashing. Were these mantras used in a sophisticated espionage training to program them a certain way, or a way to justify to themselves any action they take for the “greater good”? Something to ponder as the flick hurtles along to a dénouement that is genuinely uncertain. Ah, come on, it’s Jason Statham. There’s a nifty twist that makes excellent sense in hindsight, and a moral quandary to parse by secondary characters, but Jason, we don’t need to worry about him. No matter what happens. Even when he takes on that mercenary (Taylor James) who can take a bullet to the mouth, and a knife to the shoulder without slowing down. He’s Jason Statham, and he makes everything better.
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