“The Beekeeper”

I didn’t have a lot of fun watching “The Beekeeper,” a Jason Statham vigilante justice vehicle from director David Ayer. With a pedigreed talent behind the camera and one of the most convincing action stars of modern Hollywood in front of it, the preposterous plot and frenzied pace of the storytelling steals the joy from the film all too quickly.

Adam (Statham) lives a quiet life tending to a collection of hives on an elderly woman’s (Phylicia Rashad) remote property. When she falls victim to an elaborate scam run by a network of savvy financial hackers, Adam comes out of retirement to seek revenge. He’s prepared to kill everyone in sight, something he learned in his training as a super top secret member of the CIA’s legendary Beekeepers, a clandestine program that created an army of elite assassins. His quest to right the wrongs leads him to the offices of a young entrepreneur (Josh Hutcherson) and his guardian fixer (Jeremy Irons), and eventually, the President of the United States (Jemma Redgrave). Faced with a worthy adversary in the victim’s FBI agent daughter (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Adam fights his way to the top of the crooked scheme, eventually accepting the aid of the feds to make the bad guys pay.

It’s a simple revenge story that’s told with a frentic pace. The set-up is as rapid-fire as the action scenes, which are surprisingly not as bloody nor brutal as you’d expect from an R-rated movie. What it does have going for it is that everyone can agree that the villains in the story (smarmy, rich assholes who grift old people with data mining scams) are easy to hate. Who doesn’t enjoy seeing conmen hackers get their what-for, especially from the likes of Statham?

I love Statham and he’s definitely great here, blending an enjoyable sarcastic bite with his trademark stunt work. He commands the screen, but the story is too corny and ridiculous to recommend. “The Beekeeper” is fine, but it’s certainly not great. It’s barely even borderline good, even for fans of the star and director.

By: Louisa Moore