Pure Honey
David Ayer and Kurt Wimmer re-teaming for bonkers beat-downs delivered by a deadpan Jason Statham? Yes, please.
The beekeeper
Director: David Ayer • Writer: Kurt Wimmer
Starring: Jason Statham, Jeremy Irons, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Minnie Driver, Phylicia Rashad
USA • 1hr 45mins
Opens Hong Kong January 18 • IIB
Grade: B+
This movie is bananas.
David Ayer’s The Beekeeper is the kind of nonsense actioner that is perfect late-winter entertainment for fans of the form, and proof of the decline of Western civilisation for those who are not. No, those people would never see a movie like The Beekeeper, but its mere existence is proof enough. I fall firmly in the former, and if I can’t have Gerard Butler for some mindless, low investment-high return Q1 grime, then Jason Statham is a fine substitute. Just as long as it’s more Wrath of Man than the drivel of Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. It is, and this movie just DGAF in the best way possible.
The Beekeeper is a reunion for Ayer and writer Kurt Wimmer, who worked together on Street Kings, the first film Ayer didn’t write after making a splash as scribe on Training Day. It was part of an unofficial crime trilogy along with Harsh Times and the underrated and underseen End of Watch, and it really defined Ayer as a maestro of urban nihilism and corrupt systems. Wimmer is still known for writing the stylish but kind of batshit Equilibrium and the totally bonkers Law Abiding Citizen (starring Butler). Look at those resumes. Strap in.
Statham as farmer
Statham plays Adam Clay, a, uh, beekeeper living in the barn behind kind, retired schoolteacher Eloise Parker’s (Bill Cosby defender/apologist Phylicia Rashad, Creed) house. He clears hornet nests out of her attic and makes her honey, she invites him over for a meal. They get on. But when she’s scammed out of her savings and takes her own life, Clay goes full John Wick and tracks down the scammers. That’s the tip of huge conspiracy iceberg, and the start of a violent rampage that sees the superhuman killing machine that is Clay take apart the bad guys with hilariously deadpan efficiency. His torture of call centre scumbags Mickey Garnett (David Witts) and Rico Anzalone (Enzo Cilenti) is a riot and both have payoffs that will pull a hearty “Daaaamn!” from viewers.
Eloise’s death puts Clay in the line of fire of her daughter, FBI agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman, The Umbrella Academy, Blacklight), and her wise-cracking partner Matt Wiley (Bobby Naderi), who eventually untangle a web of digital scamming that leads to bratty techbro Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson, Five Nights at Freddy’s), his lawyer fixer Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons doing Alfred Lite) and Derek’s mother, President Danforth (Jemma Redgrave). Obviously Clay is an assassin in the secret government Beekeeper programme, one of many, that Wallace tells Derek he really, really needs to be afraid of. You know this story.
Full credit to Wimmer for going all in on the concept. The bee imagery is constant, and Ayer and Wimmer are as fully committed to it as to creative kills. Every time you think The Beekeeper can’t possibly get more outrageous it does. You’ll wonder about things every so often: Is it a prerequisite that Beekeepers actually keep bees? We knew he was a dick but when did Derek pick up the coke habit? How is Clay walking around Boston undisguised? Is the film outfitted with plot armour? Of course it is, but it also knows exactly what kind of movie it is and what its inspirations are, and makes no apologies for it. It’s lean and unfussy, Statham is in top form – he is the bad ass in this as we want him to be – and once the action starts it never lets up.
Ultimately The Beekeeper is the movie version of a jyuhpahbaau, a greasy pork chop bun from the chachaanteng that you know is full of fat and salt and really isn’t good for you but it’s just so, so tasty you can’t help but gobble it up. You might feel a little ashamed for liking it, but that crispy-soft bun is hard to resist. And that’s a huge “might”. — DEK