Jason Statham Action Thriller The Beekeeper Lands on Peacock Ahead of Sequel

Jason Statham is arguably one of the hardest working actors in the action genre. For over 20 years, he has built a steady career in long-running action franchises, including the Transporter trilogy and the Fast and Furious movies. He also has a talent for selling over-the-top premises. Who else could sell the sheer insanity of Crank? One of Statham’s more grounded movies, The Beekeeper, just hit Peacock, and it is worth checking out because it balances high-octane action with a surprisingly emotional story.

In The Beekeeper, Statham plays Adam Clay, who spends his days looking after his bee farm and striking up a friendship with Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad). Tragedy strikes after Eloise falls victim to an online scam, and Adam seeks vengeance upon those responsible. The film reveals that Adam is not just a regular beekeeper. He used to belong to a secretive organization called the Beekeepers. As a result, he is not bound by the same restrictions as other government agencies, which spells bad news for the people he hunts down.

‘The Beekeeper’ rivals ‘John Wick’ in terms of world-building

As The Beekeeper progresses, it peels back the layers of the shadowy world Adam Clay used to operate in. The Beekeeper organization was built to operate beyond the law, meaning Adam is usually ten steps ahead of his foes. When he beats another Beekeeper in hand-to-hand combat, the rest of them back off. This also lets Statham engage in the bloody violence that has come to define his movies, including a gruesome sequence where Adam makes an example out of the man who robbed Eloise.

The Beekeeper also boasts a strong supporting cast. Josh Hutcherson plays snarmy CEO Derek Danforth, while Jeremy Irons plays former CIA director and Danforth’s security chief Wallace Westwyld. Both actors turn in performances that threaten to steal the show away from Statham, with Hutcherson relishing the role of an immensely unlikeable tech bro. Irons gets some of the best lines in the movie. At the end of one scene, Westwyld tells Danforth, “For someone who has elevated f***ing up into an art form, this might well be your Mona Lisa.” In any other actor’s mouth, that would be a terrible line, but Irons gives it both gravity and disdain.

A sequel to ‘The Beekeeper’ is coming next year

The Beekeeper has solid action talent behind the camera as well as in front of it. David Ayer, best known for his work on action thrillers like Fury and End of Watch, brings his hard-hitting directorial sensibilities to the project. Kurt Wimmer, the writer of Equilibrium, utilizes the same sense of world-building that defined that science fiction movie for The Beekeeper‘s backstory. The film became a smash hit, grossing four times its production budget and leading to Statham and Ayer re-teaming for A Working Man.

The biggest example of The Beekeeper‘s success is that it is receiving a sequel set to debut next year. The action will look different with Timo Tjahjanto (The Shadow Strays, Nobody 2) stepping behind the camera. Fans can still expect Statham to deliver bloody vengeance and one-liners in equal measure, and for The Beekeeper 2 to hit just as hard emotionally as it does physically. In the meantime, the original movie is available to action fans on Peacock.

Source: Polygon