Adam Clay (Jason Statham) might as well not exist, and he would prefer it that way.  Almost untraceable in any database, he spends his days tending to his beehives and jarring honey.  When a criminal data mining company targets Eloise (Phylicia Rashad), a kind, older woman who lets him operate his bee business on her property, Clay taps into his training as a highly skilled operative to get his revenge.   

David Ayer directs The Beekeeper for MGM Studios from a Kurt Wimmer script.  The 105-minute film is a shot of adrenaline for audiences sitting through the slog of other winter releases while studios tread water ahead of awards season, and while some of the story beats and jokes are dense and dumb, it hits its tone with alarming accuracy making for a uniformed experience that, once settled in, is shockingly fun.  Gabriel Beristain’s camera captures the action and Geoffrey O’Brien in the editing suite assembles it all in a propulsive, but most excitingly, legible way so that we get to really see Statham enact his vengeance punch after punch on his way towards the center of a national conspiracy. 

The premise is simple, as many of these winter action films are, but grows in its reach through some absurd machinations though Wimmer is careful not to jump too far at any single time so the film rachets up in its intensity at a pretty steady, stomachable pace. Clay is a retired Beekeeper who spends his time as a honey farmer, but “beekeeper” in this sense refers to a classified program of highly trained specialists that operate above the CIA and do not need to seek individual orders so long as their actions are working towards their goal: to protect the hive. When Eloise falls victim to a phishing scam that drains her life savings and over two million dollars from a children’s charity fund which she operates, she dies by suicide and Clay takes it upon himself to hunt down the criminals that led her to this. Also searching for them is Agent Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman), her daughter with the FBI and her partner, Agent Matt Wiley (Bobby Naderi). Operating outside of the law, Clay is after Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), the playboy son and heir to the Danforth Company, a massive financial institution with ties to the president, putting Wiley and Parker at the intersection of fighting crime and protecting the country. 

Ayer and Wimmer crack through the silliness and keep audiences hooked because they made Derek, and his middle manager, Mickey (David Witts), so insufferable and they do not hide their contempt towards this tech bro investor archetype. Simply put, they make the villains of the story easy to hate, so we find ourselves at the edge of our seats when Clay is picking them off one by one. While The Beekeeper is certainly not looking to open up any conversations about wealth disparity as something like Emily the Criminal (2022) maybe-sorta-kinda was, Wimmer’s script, whether intentional or not, is all too happy to highlight the gross concept of this cyber-venture capitalism. The film clearly hates the concept of crypto, NFTs, and the blockchain, and it taps into that same frustration that many in the audience also hold as this endless cycle of pseudo-production, gobbles up an incredible amount of resources while contributing, quite literally, nothing of real value. These societal parasites then get to sit back and watch as their wealth grows exponentially all the while the working man gets sucked dry and let down by the systems meant to protect them.

The other interesting thing about this story, especially as it gets so close to the Office of the President, is how apolitical it remains. A smart move, for sure, in the early months of an already exhausting election year, but Wimmer makes sure the script does not seek to blame or valorize one political faction over the other, rather he tears down this tech bro culture at every opportunity with a good old fashioned beat down. 

Ayer has found the perfect middle ground between the grittiness of his WWII Tank drama, Fury (2014) and his 2 Edgy 4 U Suicide Squad (2016) with The Beekeeper. It is impossible.  It is silly.  The action sequences become more and more insane as Clay, who seems to be operating with a self-given oath not to shoot a gun goes hand to hand against armed swat teams, but it somehow works because the film does not have any higher aspirations for itself thanks to a shocking – and refreshing – lack of any meta commentary.  The Beekeeper is a surprising delight that plays perfectly at the end of a long day with a big bowl of popcorn and the brain on autopilot.