Review: The Beekeeper: Jason Statham Stoical Revenge

Jason Statham is Adam Clay a beekeeper in this David Ayer film. In it, Statham does what he does best. He exercises stoic revenge to those who harm the hive.

This 2024 film starts clever. Clay, is a friend to Eloise Parker (Played by Phylicia Rashad, known to millions as Mrs Clair Huxtable in The Cosby Show.) he keeps bees and removes a hornet’s nest from her barn.

Eloise invites him to eat as recompense for his labour. Adam silently accepts. Later, Eloise gets a disturbing message on her computer as Clay starts harvesting his bee’s honey. This happens while an unscrupulous group harvest Mrs Parker’s money.

This juxtaposition is excellent in its simplicity. Beekeeper Clay removes the honey from the hives so the beehive can thrive. The villains of this tale clean the retired teacher’s funds out of existence. The technologically challenged woman’s response is almost a foregone conclusion.

Clay comes to give the woman some honey and meets Eloise’s daughter, Special Agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman) and it is a tense moment. Later, the beekeeper takes a satellite phone from a hive. He then gets information about the group that even the FBI cannot retrieve.

Adam Clay goes to the address and avenges Mrs Parker. It is a fiery retribution.

Garnett takes some tough guys to pay back the beekeeper. The gun carrying muscle blast the hives with shotguns. The beekeeper slaughters them all save their quivering leader Garnett (David Witts).

The war has begun.

The beekeeper Cast

There are some big names associated with this action/thriller. Minnie Driver, Jeremy Irons and Josh Hutcherson all play varying degrees of villainy with a high degree of authenticity.

Director of photography Gabriel Beristain gives us a grand show here. The combination of Ayers, Beristain and editor Geoffrey O’Brien proves to be nigh on unbeatable in the stakes of action visuals, as well as the slower more heart tugging moments. Think Phylicia Rashad here and you will know exactly what we mean.

Hutcherson is spot on as the boss/head villain we immediately love to hate. Irons is, of course, Irons. He shines no matter how small the cameo. Speaking of tiny cameos, Minnie Driver managed to stand out in her “blink and you’ll miss em,” part. *Kudos to Witts as the obnoxious middleman and coward who is clearly a bully and quivering tower of jelly when challenged.

In cinemas now

The Beekeeper is still on its cinematic run. One can, however, pay an exorbitant fee to stream it. Whatever choice you make, watch this one if:

You are a Statham fan.

You like tales of stoical revenge.

You love well put together action/thriller films

and

You want to see a movie while chomping popcorn and cheering the good guys.

Watch the trailer below and see if The Beekeeper stings you.