The films of crime fiction writer-director David Ayer sit
somewhere alongside the bumpier rugged fare of S. Craig Zahler, Peter Berg or
even Walter Hill in terms of delivering brawny hard-boiled police/gang violence
thrillers. Starting as a screenwriter
for Training Day, Dark Blue and S.W.A.T. before mounting
his own efforts as a writer director with Harsh Times, End of Watch,
Sabotage and Fury, the action crime filmmaker established himself
at the forefront of distinctly American modern action thrillers with a bit of a
sharp jagged edge to them.
Ayer was hitting his stride, until the DCEU and Warner
Brothers gave him a call with what ultimately became his ill-fated Suicide Squad
film with Jared Leto, Will Smith and Margot Robbie and for a brief moment
the director fell on hard times. With
final cut taken away, the film did well financially but took a fierce critical
beating to such a degree that in 2021, the film was kinda sorta rebooted again
with Margot Robbie (this time directed by James Gunn). A year later, Ayer stepped back from writing
to adapt Max Landis’ screenplay for the Netflix film Bright which was a
success for the streamer but gave Ayer some of the worst reviews of his career.
A movie that realizes
our fantasies of destroying telemarketing scammers en masse with tough
superhuman Statham as a worker bee who one day decides to launch a revolt
against the hive, so to speak, its pure check-your-brain-at-the-door escapism
with some slick cinematography by recurring Ayer collaborator Gabriel Beristain
and a rousing electronic score, again, by Ayer stalwart Dave Sardy and Jared
Michael Fry. The ensemble cast is
generally good but let’s face it, this is a rock-em sock-em kick-punch-body slam
actioner with mostly physical acting.
Intended for theatrical release by Amazon MGM Studios before
becoming an Amazon Original on the streaming service, The Beekeeper is old
fashioned action escapist spectacle with some wild fight scenes and deliciously
served just desserts with Statham, yes, doing his usual thing but with Ayer
behind it the film is a solid B-movie.
Disposable, sure, but Statham is hitting his stride and has kept busy
over the past year and a half.
In an age
where young millennials seem to be the ones robbing the rich and poor blind, The
Beekeeper is a wishful thinking imagining of what if Jason Statham decided
to break in and sort the evil miscreants out?
It’s comfort food we’ve seen thousands of times before which, for all of
its 80s-90s action movie cliches still gets the job done reasonably well in a
two-hour duration. You know what you’re
signing up for with this.
--Andrew Kotwicki