The Beekeper - An Entertaining Old School Action Movie with Some Greatly Done Fight Scenes

As fans of Jason Statham, my wife and I did not want to miss out on seeing him in action once again. So when this latest movie of his was released yesterday, it did not require too much convincing for my wife to see it in the theater near our home. It was the 6.30 PM show which gave me plenty of time to be there after my day's work. All right then, let's get into it.

Brief Story Line

Adam Clay (Jason Statham - Meg 2: The Trench, Fast X etc) was a beekeeper who was neighbor with a retired teacher, Mrs. Parker (Phylicia Rashad - Creed III etc). When she got scammed by a group of scammers and lost her savings, Adam decided to take matters into his own hand. He tried to pursue all the people responsible, especially their ultimate leader Derek (Josh Hutcherson - Zathura: A Space Adventure, Future Man TV series etc) who had a resourceful advisor Wallace (Jeremy Irons - Red Sparrow, The Mission etc).

As Adam wreak havoc and left a trail of bodies, he was also being sought by FBI agents Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman - The Umbrella Academy TV series, Dog etc) and Wiley (Bobby Naderi - How I Got There etc).

So what would happen to Adam? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Just like other movies that starred Jason Statham, the main attraction would be his fighting ability that still managed to amaze me even after all these years. This film really put Statham's capability to the maximum with some high speed one on one and one against many fight scenes with minimum special effects which did not involve CGI. It was certainly refreshing to see those kind of action sequence. Oh this was R rated in the US and 17+ in Indonesia due to its violence and brutality. Added with some great sound effects even from the studio with standard sound system, made the experience greater. So you could imagine if we had seen it at studio with Dolby Atmos system or Imax studio (where the movie also played).

In term of plot, I actually thought it was not so thin as it had a bit of background story of why Adam did what he did. And that reason only made us sympathize to his cause especially my wife who was always so satisfied whenever Adam managed to hurt the bad guys (she clapped hands few times after the fights). There was even a bit of surprising twist on the villain which was hinted few times earlier. Although the Beekeeper itself was only explained briefly, but audience could understand it easily and I personally thought it was sufficiently done as the focus had always been Adam's aim to get to the people responsible. 

When I watched the opening credit and closing credit scene, I did not see if the movie was based on any books or anything. It was written by Kurt Wimmer, writer of The Thomas Crown Affair, The Recruit and few others including the poorly written movies like Sphere or Expend4bles. But the name that I was familiar with was definitely the director David Ayer (Suicide Squad, Fury etc). So he had sufficient experience in directing action films which translated to cool entertaining action sequence. Btw it did not have any mid or post end credit scene.

The cast in here generally did their job adequately to my opinion. The bad guy was totally annoying and deserved everything Adam Clay did, which meant Josh Hutcherson did a good enough job to convince us so. I also like the FBI agents here especially Wiley who provided a bit of dry humor with his remarks. In addition to the names I mentioned above, there were also the brief appearances of Jemma Redgrave (Doctor Who TV series, Howards End etc) as Derek's mother, Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting, The Riches TV series etc) as CIA director and few others. Although most of them did not leave any lasting impression.

Overall to me this was an entertaining action thriller movie where Statham did his best to satisfy us in watching bad guys deservedly being punished and obviously his ability to fight off against many people. There were some pretty amazing fights with one or two better fighters which were enjoyable to watch too. And the duration of 1 hour 45 minutes felt nice with enough scenes that would please us fans of action film. All in all, not a bad one for Statham who also served as producer here. So if you are fans of old school action movie where it relied heavily on the ability of the leading star to fight, then you would love this like my wife and I did. But if your preference is a movie with lots of intelligent and deep dialogues, then this will not suit you. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars