A professional assassin sets aside his peaceful honey-making activities to avenge an exploited friend’s death in director David Ayer’s unusually kooky, funny-terrible conspiracy thriller.A professional assassin sets aside his peaceful honey-making activities to avenge an exploited friend’s death in director David Ayer’s unusually kooky, funny-terrible conspiracy thriller.
The Beekeeper” is a sinful pleasure that is fabulously amusing and puts fun above all sense of importance. Jason Statham plays retired government assassin turned kind beekeeper Adam Clay, allegedly parodying his own action-hero character. The ridiculousness of the movie is shown as Clay becomes a berserker after his elderly landlady is the target of a phishing attack. The absurd script is welcomed by director David Ayer, who prioritizes comedy over realism. It’s impossible not to laugh at Statham’s scowls when gathering honey or navigating internet frauds, but “The Beekeeper” is a hilariously outrageous ride that shouldn’t be missed.
Sure enough, Eloise is disconcerted when a hard-drive malware notice flashes up on her laptop screen, encouraging her to phone a company identified as United Data Group. Shortly after, the elderly woman is conned out of her life savings and a $2 million charity account that she oversees by cunning UDG dirtbag Garnett (David Witts).
Garnett preens and poses like Jordan Belfort getting the adoration of his brokerage acolytes in The Wolf of Wall Street at the data-mining center. Later, Enzo Cilenti plays Rico Anzalone, an even more oily scammer at an even bigger sister enterprise. Since it’s a David Ayer movie, the offices have bright lights akin to those of a nightclub.
If you remove the apiary component, Blaga’s Lessons, Bulgaria’s bid for the international feature category of the 2024 Oscars, essentially has these story points. However, Eloise lacks the resourcefulness of the main character in that social-realist novel, who is also a retired schoolteacher, and instead turns to crime. She shoots herself as soon as she concedes defeat. Phylicia, good bye. Someone had to make the honorable sacrifice in order for Jason Statham to go on a vendetta.
Rated R for stinging language and violence. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters.
The Beekeeper
- Director :David Ayer
- Writer : Kurt Wimmer
- Stars:Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Bobby Naderi, Josh Hutcherson, Jeremy Iron
- Running Time :1h 45m
- Genres :Action, Thrille
- Movie data powered by IMDb.com
Whenever “The Beekeeper” attempts to be rational, things become tedious. Eloise’s daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman), an obsessive, heavily intoxicated FBI agent who I assume was funny on paper, is featured in countless scenes of frantic phone calls and a pointless moral dispute between outsider justice and civilized law. I would skip her plot line in favor of more of Ayer’s joyful villains, such the contact center creepazoids Mickey (David Witts) and Rico (Enzo Cilenti), their boss, Derek (Josh Hutchinson), who is a skateboarding tech bro, and Anisette (Megan Le), a competing bee freak who enters screaming and leaves way too soon.
Statham excels as a straight-faced goof. Between his glower and the movie’s high-quality production values, this brain cell-destroying schlock resembles an earnest drama. Yet, Ayer makes it plain that he’s in on the joke. As Statham lays waste to a camo-clad squadron, the shoulder patches on their uniforms read: BS.Statham excels as a straight-faced goof. Between his glower and the movie’s high-quality production values, this brain cell-destroying schlock resembles an earnest drama. Yet, Ayer makes it plain that he’s in on the joke. As Statham lays waste to a camo-clad squadron, the shoulder patches on their uniforms read: BS.