David Ayer, once noted for the muscle that he brought to the scripts for Dark Blue and The Fast and the Furious, has, of late, dallied in such increasingly fanciful universes as Suicide Squad and Bright. With The Beekeeper, the former submariner and stuntman is a long way from the grit of Harsh Times, his directorial debut. Working from a screenplay by Kurt Wimmer, who wrote the equally outlandish Law Abiding Citizen, Ayer crafts a pacy, unabashedly silly actioner replete with covert organisations, tech-bro villainy and an (apparently) unkillable hero.
It falls to Jason Statham to plug the very obviously John Wick-sized hole at the centre of a hail of bullets. Dodgy accent aside – there’s some muttering that Statham’s American-military retiree came from “the British Isles” originally – it’s a good fit for the action veteran, who strolls brusquely, nostrils flaring, into armies of enemies with the air of an annoyed man taking out overflowing bins.
Statham plays “Mr Clay”, the apiarist of the title, who is spurred to vengeful action when his kindly neighbour dies by suicide after falling for a phishing scam. He is hunted by mercenaries in the employ of nepo-baby billionaire Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), who just happens to be advised by Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), a former spook with detailed knowledge of the beekeepers.
He is also pursued by the FBI agents Wiley (Bobby Naderi) and Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman), who just happens to be his late neighbour’s daughter. Unsurprisingly, they fail to keep up with Statham, who, as ever, performs his own stunts and even mastered beekeeping for the role. “Everyone, can I have your attention: I’m going to burn this place to the ground,” his character announces to an implausibly futuristic call centre before he razes it. Bystanders be damned.
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There are valiant attempts at world-building pivoting around the idea that Mr Clay is one of a hive of “beekeepers”, a secret society of deadly assassins at the darker end of government agencies. There’s a half-hearted plot twist that doesn’t land. Mostly, however, this is a film about explosions and bad guys getting their comeuppance. Fast cuts and more than 50 credited stuntmen and stuntwomen make for, well, buzzy spectacle.
The Beekeeper opens in cinemas on Friday, January 12th
