The Beekeeper
While many crimes are loathsome,
there's something truly odious about online scammers who prey on the elderly's
lack of internet savvy to empty their bank accounts. So there is something
viscerally satisfying about seeing Jason Statham terrorize these scumbags in
David Ayer's new action film The Beekeeper.
Statham plays Adam Clay, a laconic man
serving as a beekeeper on the farm of an elderly widow (Phylicia Rashad). When
she commits suicide after her bank account, and the account of the charity she
helps run, is emptied by online scammers, Clay leaps into action. He's of
course not an ordinary beekeeper, but a retired government operative (think a
more violent version of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible crew).
Clay makes enough of a mess that he
soon attracts the attention of the scammers' wealthy young chief (Josh
Hutcherson) who has political connections, including the ear of a former head
of the CIA (Jeremy Irons).
The Beekeeper is at its best in
its early going. But as fun as it can be watching Statham deliver comeuppance
to the odious, some of the scenes do get repetitive. The best revenge scene in
the film is the first one. A late plot twist breathes a little life into the proceedings,
but it's all a little too repetitive for me to give it a full recommendation.
But that said, it's not a bad action movie to pass the time.
