It looks like Jason Statham has found his “John Wick.”
The tough guy actor, whose facial hair, nine-tenths bald head and general demeanor vary almost imperceptibly from movie to movie, plays an unstoppable killing machine in “The Beekeeper.” That’s par for the course. It’s the world that screenwriter Kurt Wimmer and director David Ayer build around him that makes “The Beekeeper” buzz, and is likely to bring back Statham for more.
Statham is Adam Clay, a low-key beekeeper not bothering anyone, living out his days tending to his hive in a farmhouse he rented out from a kind retiree, Eloise (Phylicia Rashad). When she is the victim of a phishing scam at the hands of a cartoonishly oily crew of sleazeballs — we’ll get to them in a minute — Adam goes on the warpath, and “The Beekeeper” is set in motion. (Remember, Wick was a quiet guy who didn’t want any trouble from anyone, until bad guys killed his dog.)
The scammers are led by a scene-stealing David Witts, who plays Mickey Garnett, the slimy leader of a group of online thieves, who is like a tech bro version of “The Wolf of Wall Street’s” Jordan Belfort by way of Topher Grace at his most smug. The moment Witts is on screen, in an office that looks like a comic book version of a hacker warehouse, the tone is set: This is silly, broad stroke stuff, not grounded in any way and not meant to be taken the least bit seriously. Which allows it to spread its wings and fly.
Turns out Mickey answers to Derek Danforth, played by a smarmy Josh Hutcherson, who honestly can’t keep up with Witts’ hammy slickster dude bro obnoxiousness. (The two roles should have been swapped.) Derek, who has ties all the way to the top, doesn’t understand the danger he’s in now that there’s a beekeeper after him. A beekeeper? Seriously?
But Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), who has been sworn to protect Derek even though he can barely stomach the little twit, knows this beekeeper is not just a beekeeper, but part of a triple secret task force of elite, off-the-books professionals who work outside the system in order to keep the system safe. And if a beekeeper says he’s going to kill you, it’s best to start wrapping up any loose ends you may have dangling.
Like “Wick,” we have layers of mythology, high levels of violence, and a script that feels like it’s been adopted from a graphic novel but hasn’t. (It’s an original story, and Wimmer and Ayer previously teamed on the gritty “Street Kings.”) The pieces are set in motion so that Statham can do his thing and take no prisoners against an escalating series of dudes in his way, including Taylor James, who plays a big-toothed assassin and looks like something out of a “Street Fighter” game.
“The Beekeeper” is slick, dumb fun: Not as stylish or tightly executed as “John Wick,” but it takes its time with characters — including a pair of FBI agents (Emmy Raver-Lampman and Bobby Naderi) — and sets itself up for a franchisable future. There’s plenty of honey here to go around.
