The Beekeeper

It’s rare that Jason Statham leads a film and actually pursues a sequel to it. Generally, this is because he’s far too busy making a new action film. He is not the lead of The Expendables or the Fast and Furious franchises, so while he has appeared in multiple sequels there, it’s hard to call them his franchises. Their concepts are fun, and have grown with each passing year, and an argument could be made that the same template for a Jason Statham character exists there, too.

Looking at his work for the last decade or so, he has settled into a comfortable rhythm – a loner with a military history who would like to just do whatever he wants in his retirement, if he’s not on the run already, before dragging himself back into that life because of a tragedy. Whether that tragedy is personal or tangential has never truly mattered – it could happen to somebody he has known his entire life or has formed a recent attachment with. The Beekeeper lands on the latter through implication.

The Beekeeper introduces us to Adam Clay (Statham), a quiet beekeeper who keeps to himself, tending to bees on the land of Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad). Eloise is a retired school teacher who has rented out the space over one of her buildings to him. The pair have a close friendship and, one day, after inviting him over to dinner, she finds herself the victim of a phishing scam that steals not only her life savings but millions in a charity that she oversees as a signatory. Hit with a sudden wave of shame and embarrassment, Eloise kills herself. By the time Clay arrives for dinner and finds her, Eloise’s daughter Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman) arrives and instantly suspects that he has murdered her mother.

While some of Statham’s films give him the ability to protect the person he has a connection with, The Beekeeper rips Eloise away violently, through something quite familiar to millions of us. Phishing scams have become the bane of society, and we’re treated to all manner of reasons why it is impossible to fully deal with them. Verona is an FBI Agent and can barely make a dent in her investigation, which the FBI as a whole has been running for years into the varying tendrils of this scam. Her partner Matt Wiley (Bobby Naderi) calls her on her day off with a smoldering clue that points to the outfit that robbed her mother blind, through which the main plot ignites.

Adam Clay is soon revealed to be more than just a literal beekeeper, but a Beekeeper, part of a covert CIA program who are adept at infiltration and assassination on the government’s orders. Eloise’s suicide sends Clay on a mission to avenge her and, in the process, tear through the organization that took advantage of her kindness and, let’s be honest, naïveté. What appears like a local operation run by Mickey Garnett (David Witts) turns out to be a massive organization under the control of Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), the CEO of Danforth Enterprises and, as the film would go on to reveal, the son of the President, Jessica Danforth (Jemma Redgrave). What seemed like a small fry becomes something far more grotesque, and the question becomes about how far Clay will go to avenge Eloise, and how many people he’ll kill to do it.

What I liked about The Beekeeper is what I’ve generally always enjoyed about Jason Statham’s movies. The world is intriguing. Beekeepers are government operatives with some level of independent personality, even if we’re only afforded two actual members to compare – Adam Clay and Anisette Landress (Megan Le). Where Clay is calm and composed through his rage, Anisette is utterly psychotic, laughing as she sprays a gas station with a Gatling gun to try and kill one man. With how quickly and efficiently Clay tore through the security at the first call center, her methods aren’t half-baked even if she might have been. Clay proves throughout the film that catching him off guard barely grants an enemy a chance against him. Attacking him with overwhelming force barely slows him down.

We are also given a glimpse into how the operation works through Janet Harward (Minnie Driver), the current CIA Director, who, as a favor to Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), the former Director and now head of Security for Danforth Enterprises. The very same operation that Clay calls in for to get information on the call center he attacks, which draws Verona and Wiley’s attention straight to him, is the same one that dispatches Anisette and then politely steps aside with claims of neutrality. The sequel is coming out in a handful of months, and it is my hope that we are afforded more information on the organization than The Beekeeper wanted to dole out.

Clay is not just cutting down random people throughout the film. Nine Star United Center, under Derek Danforth, becomes his core target before he learns about Derek. Derek, of course, becomes aware of who Clay is first because Adam Clay is not doing anything to hide his identity as he tears through Nine Star United to get to the bottom of who is responsible for Eloise’s death. Each fight that Clay tears his way through draws Derek closer to the reality that his life is in danger, and yet his personality stands in the way of him accepting that reality for longer than a handful of moments. His dedication to his own ego is commendable, but it puts Jessica Danforth and Wallace Westwyld in the most awkward position imaginable.

The Beekeeper 2 is set to come out in January 2027 and is bringing back four of the major characters from this first outing – Adam Clay, Verona Parker, Matt Wiley, Jessica Danforth, and Wallace Westwyld. Considering how The Beekeeper ended, it will be interesting to see where each of them lands.