Statham plays Adam Clay, a beekeeper. The film opens with him talking to a kind woman named Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad). Eloise is the owner of the bee farm where he works; she also handles the finances of some charities on the side. Clay thanks Eloise for taking care of him. We'll never find out what that means, but things then become quite dumb. Eloise lost all her savings and the money from the charities to a group of swindlers. But instead of calling the police, she took her own life. The film never establishes that Eloise is suicidal or depressed. Hence, her death feels a bit crass and a total cheap move by David Ayer to give Adam some kind of motivation.
Like a true justified action hero, Adam didn't waste any time going to work to find the scammers. Apparently, he's a former agent for a secret group called Beekeepers. And with his connections, he managed to find the scammers location and burn it down to the ground, much to the chagrin of the company's president, Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), and his security slash advisor, Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons). He then warns them that they're next.
Adam's violent ways also caught the attention of Eloise's daughter, FBI Agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman), who disapproves of his method. But this plot has zero effect on where things are going. It never developed into something exciting or important.
The whole movie feels so half-baked. It feels like there's still a lot about it that's left unsaid. It also didn't help that the script was terrible. But Jason Statham's effort to make it work is admirable. He does everything here. He gets into some hand-to-hand combat. He gets into loads of gunfights. He gets into a knife fight. He even got to say some bee puns. He's basically like John Wick, minus the sophistication of Keanu Reeves.
The Beekeeper is formulaic, but it works in a way since the people involved in it kind of accepted its silliness. While I'm not sure if this movie fits in the "so bad that it's good" tier, I believe it comes pretty close.
2.5/5
