I Watch Films: The Beekeeper

 

The Beekeeper

Adam Clay (Jason Statham) keeps bees at the back of retired teacher Eloise Parker’s land; one day scammers get access to her accounts, including the charity she administers. $2,000,000 are stolen and she kills herself. Adam Clay discovers the body and is arrested by her daughter Verona, an FBI agent. When he’s cleared she realises this is an organised group of fraudsters that the FBI have been unable to track down, and tells Adam this.

Clay is a retired “Beekeeper,” part of a mysterious organisation that secretly protects the United States, above and beyond the government, though we don’t get the explanation yet. Clay uses his contacts to track down the scam call centre which he enters, attacks, and burns, using beekeeper metaphors about burning out parasites. So far so good; the guy in charge is smarmily aggravating.

But that’s not an end to it. This is the illegal end of a big tech business run by Derek Danforth. Danforth has the scam manager get some men together to go and attack Clay. This doesn’t work out well.

When Danforth learns about this he informs his security manager Westwyld (Jeremy Irons) who previously had no interest. It becomes clear that there’s something up; Westwyld is the former CIA director, appointed by Danforth’s mother. Westwyld calls the current CIA director, who contacts the Beekeepers. They send the current Beekeeper after him; this goes spectacularly wrong, with Clay surviving and the Beekeepers declaring neutrality.

Clay keeps going up the line, trying to find who’s behind the scam call centres. After spending about half the film being deliberately sidelined for reasons that only make sense after the big Act 2 reveal, Verona is brought onto the case. It all escalates ridiculously, also violently.

Post John Wick high concept thrillers love to have a secret society, an underworld in parallel with the regular normal world. This one is less extraordinary than others, a US agency that polices everything else, so while the impact is large, it’s actual footprint is small. (Has no one noticed that so many international criminals stay at the Hotel Continental?). The villains here are especially unpleasant, amoral scam artists, whose ill-gotten gains prop up an obnoxious young tech billionaire – whose motives are to support a family member and in so doing reach into the heart of the American system. Is this a bit much for the rather slender foundation of Jason Statham walking into buildings and beating up several dozen security guards, SWAT team members, [SPOILERS] and weird South African mercenaries? Yeah, a bit.

Watch This: Cool action film with really sleazy and unpleasant villains
Don’t Watch This: You’ve seen enough films where Jason Statham dismantled entire police departments