The film’s biggest highlight is the actor as an unlikely hero: a beekeeper-turned-assassin.
Bees, scammers, and a hive of lies. Jason Statham’s latest record-breaking feature The Beekeeper is honey-soaked, with wisdom that leaves the viewer wanting more and learning to be wary of scammers, stop elder abuse, and save the bees. As he aggressively fights to save the bees (and society) from total destruction, Statham serves up the same kind of grizzled Brit-buster vibes he’s given us through decades of punch-em-up action. But this one’s something special, a caper that leans into the meme of both Statham’s curious star power and his apian brethren.
Directed by David Ayer, The Beekeeper tells the story of Adam Clay (Jason Statham), a beekeeper and retired member of the crime-fighting organization of the same name. But when his elderly neighbor Mrs. Parker (Phylicia Rashad) is subject to scammers and loses everything, Adam goes on a mission to find the scammers and kill their operation to “protect the hive.” His journey leads him all the way to the White House, even involving the FBI and CIA.
What makes The Beekeeper so appealing is how it never takes itself too seriously. Like flies to honey, it sticks to its guns: action, bees, revenge, and Jason Statham, creating a film that feels self-aware in all of its silliness. Ayer is experienced in telling nuanced stories of good versus evil in law enforcement, with narratives focusing on people fighting to protect themselves and their families. This film is no exception to that rule, but its subject matter focuses on a lone anti-hero in an industry that isn’t necessarily as glorified as the illegal drug trade per say. However, he maintains the grittiness and comedy that he brought to films like Suicide Squad to make a story that audience’s can engage with, precisely through his leading man.
As Adam Clay, Statham is the strong and silent type. When he first appears on screen, killing hornets that had taken over his hive of bees, he brings precision and seriousness to a job that should be sweet as honey. His kinship with Mrs. Parker adds heart to his character and when she is found dead by suicide, he is broken. This, coupled with the other information shared (he was born in England, is a beekeeper, and was a former Beekeeper, a member of the classified, off-the-grid crime-fighting organization) leaves the audience wanting more, lingering with questions about who he is and why he makes his choices.
Statham has been known for movies that feel too strange to be true and as a personality associated with the action genre specifically. Last year saw him return to his character Jonas Taylor, a rescue diver, in The Meg 2: The Trench (a sequel to The Meg), fighting prehistoric sharks and saving a crew of human scientists and divers. But where that film had Statham at odds with nature and its creatures, the Beekeeper offers him a chance to showcase himself as a man fighting for their survival as well as humanity’s (especially when bees are currently at risk because of global warming and climate change). He also proves that bees are stronger than they appear; In cinema, sharks are deemed ferocious and threatening (see: Jaws), while bees are smaller and less threatening (actually, some populations of bees are currently threatened with extinction), protectors of honey and their hives.
The last time bees had so much buzz on screen was in 2007 when the animated film Bee Movie was released (it also had a resurgence in 2016). Written by and starring Jerry Seinfeld, the Bee Movie portrays bees as class conscious, fighting for direct access to their honey and a fair system to be compensated. The Beekeeper contains a similar message of egalitarian struggle, but it isn’t so much a collective goal as a single man’s plan for payback in a society that ignores its elderly. But unlike Seinfeld’s portrayal as a jazzy New York neurotic, Statham’s fearless protector (or Lorax; he “speaks for the [bees]”, after all) brings his signature British accent and stern, handsome face to make them edgier and guarded, ready to attack when needed.
Adam acts more like a bee, stinging anyone that gets in his way, planning to stop only when and if he dies. When the scammers kill his bees, they become the hornets infecting the hive that Adam feels he must kill (why he chooses to chop off their fingers only adds to the mystery of his character). As they attempt to catch him, the FBI takes notice of a book on keeping bees and discovers Adam’s main tactic: to protect the hive, he must kill their queen, a real-life action bees take in their hive in response to bad offspring or brood pattern. The queen he’s after is the president – her bad offspring is her millennial son, the antagonist, Derek (portrayed with hilarity by Josh Hutcherson), who created the scamming operation and even used the scammed money during the presidential campaign. In the end, Clay axes Derek instead, as though to send a final message: respect your elders.
Clay’s role as beekeeper makes him serve not only as a protector of bees but humans too; he goes after the scammers because he knows the elderly people being taken advantage of have no one there to fight for them. He is an action hero akin to John Wick and maybe even James Bond (minus the machismo). Adam Clay is the people’s hero, someone trying to live a life of calm and will stand up when things aren’t right. Whatever happens next, he’ll be fighting for us until his last sting.