Bee Minus

David Ayer may have finally given up…and found his niche in the process. The Beekeeper finds the directorial punching bag of Suicide Squad and Bright infamy turning a controlled opposition circus distraction for political discontents into an unpretentious Manichean action romp of yore, starring Jason Statham, no less. It’s the rare contemporary film where the bad guys are actually bad and their downfall is once again a simple pleasure. No Dark Knight-aping revolutionary condescension here; the powers that Bee get theirs!

THE BEEKEEPER ★★★ (3/5 stars)
Directed by: David Ayer
Written by: Kurt Wimmer
Starring: Jason Statham, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Bobby Naderi
Running time: 105 mins

Sure; the story’s “Beekeeper” program is a deep-state “system protection program”, but it has a neutral moral alignment. Not only is the nature of “the system” savvily evaded so that opponents of capitalism, crony capitalism, Hunter Biden aristocracy (a very obvious inspiration for Josh Hutcherson’s character) and even American democracy can project their ideology onto the film, but it also conveniently loosens its attachment to our protagonist, Statham’s Adam Clay. He’s retired from the program, returning him to a social status of average citizen Literally Just Like Me.

He also survives an assassination attempt from the current official Beekeeper in a in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it action scene, his replacement being a shrieking, hot pink clad, Cyberpunk-Mohawk-sporting female with a minigun in her pickup truck bed. She remains aesthetically jarring to the film as a whole, but its silliness helps it all not to congeal into the slop it’s reasonable to fear it would be. After all, sight-unseen all it has is a January release date, gutter rep personnel, and the simple fact that “Beekeeper” is a dumb name for a dumber idea, compounded by the even dumber choice of making Statham a literal beekeeper as well.

There’s never really a chance for the film to become dull, as the momentum, quite frankly, is perfect. One of the best ways the minimalist thriller genre can be its best self is with brisk pacing and this delivers, stupid stuff either charming or fully disregardable. You can easily laugh off everything that doesn’t work; the low level FBI agents  are not funny, though they do lighten the mood, and it could all stand to be a bit prettier . Unfortunately at no point does a single element transcend into Gonzo dumb nor true intrigue, nor physical action brilliance. The closest thing is to that is the final reveal of the scale of the conspiracy, though the film doesn’t quite have the balls to take it to a more logical, blackpilled conclusion. But balls enough, it has, for fun’s sake!

Schlockmeister Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, Salt, The Expendables 4) has grounded Ayer with his no=frills script. Ayer, originally hyped as the writer of Training Day (a movie with such bizarre moral narratology that you’d never guess it was so popular just watching it), just has never been able to deliver whether courting prestige clout (Fury, End of Watch) nor genre hype (Suicide Squad, Bright). He may yet capitalize on this, what’s stirring in schlock-head circles as a true throwback; the kind of random 90s Friday Night fodder Steven Seagal keeps trying and failing to make work.

It’s so modest that it’s downright balmy; disposable but so functional that you’ll be praying Ayer gives us more empty pleasures like this to scarf for years to come. Given the success of Vulgar Auteurism in rehabilitating the reputations of genuinely masterful vulgarian filmmakers, it’s time for its champions to find new, less lofty reclamation projects. Ayer will have to stay on this path to earn those eyes, but I hope he does.