It’s Time for a B Movie. Enter ‘The Beekeeper’

It’s cold. It’s bleak. There’s not a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks except for a series of dark days. If you’re looking for a few things to cheer yourself up, join the club. I’m calling it the In Need of Cheer Club, or INCC, for short.

What can possibly pierce the grey malaise of January, you ask?

I have one answer for you. The Beekeeper, the latest starring seasoned action-thriller actor Jason Statham. It’s about as silly as they come, which is saying a lot. But after all the awards season frou-frou has come and gone, Statham will still be here, plugging along, a trucker hat perched upon his balding pate, a nice smattering of stubble gracing his chin, eyes crinkling as he looks upon the state of the world and finds it, as always, in need of work.

But work he does, like a little pit pony trained to haul coal from the depths of the earth to the topside of the soil.

Before he became a beekeeper named Adam Clay in the 2024 movie, our pal Statham had a number of different jobs: amateur diver, music video dancer, male model, transporter, shark hunter, electrical test dummy and, yes, super-duper action star.

You’ve got to hand it to the dude: he takes a licking and keeps on kicking. Not everyone can face down a giant prehistoric shark twice and keep their wits about them, but Statham comes from a hard place. I think it’s actually Derbyshire, England. But hey, it’s no picnic there, OK?

In The Beekeeper, Statham is back in his usual mode as a taciturn force of implacable will and good-time violence. If you don’t ask too much of this film, you might find yourself bouncing along as Statham’s character single-handedly takes down the FBI, the CIA, the TSA and a gang of Burning Man mercenaries from South Africa. It’s a little tricky to ascertain where these bad boys are actually from, but in addition to their loads of weapons, they’re also sporting nifty hats, lots of tattoos, piercings and tiger-print onesies. You needn’t worry about it too much — the screenwriters obviously didn’t.

At some point or other, any narrative coherence in The Beekeeper goes crashing through a plate glass window. And that’s how it ought to be. One does not go to a Statham film for profound artiness. Nay! One goes for kicky-kicky, punchy-punchy and shooty-shooty. And by golly, that’s what you’re going to get.

Unlike other action stars — Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, JCVD (that’s Jean-Claude Van Damme for the uninitiated) — Statham has never had more artistic ambitions. The man knows himself, what he can do and what he cannot. And that demands a certain kind of respect.

In The Beekeeper, Statham plays to his strengths. There are lots of fight scenes, a bit of growled dialogue and a series of extended moments wherein the Stathammer does what he does best. In this particular scenario, it’s taking down a collection of evil phone scammers. In the grand scheme, phone scammers might not be up there with drug czars, international terrorists or mercenaries for hire, but they are one group that everyone can collectively agree genuinely sucks.

This particular group targets old folks, stealing their pension funds and reducing them to terrible penury. In the film’s opening scene, a sweet older lady played by Phylicia Rashad (the actress who played Mrs. Cosby in the hit ’80s family sitcom before, you know, horrible truths about its titular star become public knowledge) is the victim of a phishing scam that cleans out her personal accounts and the children’s charity she manages. What’s a lady to do but immediately off herself. She is only one of many. As the story makes abundantly evident, old folks and their money are soon parted. In the logic of The Beekeeper, this is akin to schoolyard bullies taking one’s lunch money.

If there is one thing that irks our friend Statham, it’s bullies. So off he goes like a little bottle rocket, creating a swath of crimson carnage in his wake.

At some point in the film, Jeremy Irons shows up. I may have hooted out loud at this point. In any B movie, the appearance of the Irons almost guarantees that the scenery will be extensively chewed and things will get even more gonzo. I was not disappointed.

After all the wrongs have been righted and the dastardly duly chastised, Statham and his apiary ways disappear into the setting sun. That’s all, folks, until evildoers once more threaten the world. You'd think they’d get tired, but no, evil never stops. Fortunately, neither does our man Statham.

Now that he’s done his job as a beekeeper, what’s next for the man? What jobs need filling? Florist, psychic pet counsellor, lunch lady, actual bee? Really the sky’s the limit for what this dude is capable of.

A series of jobs and their cinematic adaptations await. For Jason Statham, let imagination be your guide.

‘The Beekeeper’ is playing now in major theatres.