Well, I've never seen the occupation of a beekeeper being transferred to the silver screen as an action hero. And who else could possibly make a beekeeper look rock hard? Jason Statham of course, the invincible action man. Yep Statham and Seagal, the only action stars that only ever play retired ex-special forces types.
So what's the score here? Well Jason Statham is a retired highly skilled killing machine assassin from a secret organisation known as the 'Beekeepers'. When his close friend commits suicide after falling for a nasty phishing scam Clay (Statham) comes out of retirement to track down the culprits and deal out some hard-hittin' retribution. We follow Clay's hyper-violent crusade one stage at a time as he takes out one bad buy after another leading him ever closer to the final boss. The question is, how high does this go?
So let's not beat around the bush here, this is essentially a blend of 'Taken' and 'John Wick'. Replace John Wick's puppy with a close friend and this movie is almost exactly the same thing. Clay going around sending ominous threats to the bad guys felt a lot like Liam Neeson in his action vehicle franchise. I have to be honest in the fact that there's really nothing new here at all. We've seen this type of thing a gazillion times before, the only real difference is the quality of action and stunts we see. I can't deny that Statham has become the gold standard in action fest flicks. His fight sequences, although lacking in realism, are brutal and kinetic offering much bang for your buck.
The bad guys in question are slightly unique in that they're using the modern era issue of online scamming. Everyone gets these ridiculous emails that are often very fake looking or somewhat believable. Everyone also gets those annoying phone calls which are sometimes automated. Well in this movie the scammers operate from some huge fancy office block (decorated like some neon strip club) with seemingly loads of employees. This seemed somewhat over the top to me as I'm sure actual online scammers aren't employed to do it in fancy office blocks. But I did like the fact that the villains were just random everyday types and their bosses were smarmy suit types you just know exist everywhere. I can't deny that the sequence where Clay's friend is being slowly scammed out of all her money was uncomfortable. Not in a scary way but just annoyingly uncomfortable, like how could anyone hand over all their passwords etc...over the phone! Josh Hutcherson was absolutely perfect as the young obnoxious rich kid running the show, you really wanna see him die.
Still, despite all this director David Ayer couldn't help himself and had to include some more 'John Wick' (videogame) elements with other Beekeeper assassins being called on to take out Clay. At one point Clay is attacked by a female Beekeeper who basically looks and sounds ridiculous. She has this dated cyberpunk look going on which looked completely out of place, and had a minigun turret on the back of her pickup. As Clay slowly kills his way up the ladder, tougher opponents are hired to try and stop him. He faces off against a black-ops team, A Secret Service Counter Assault Team, and eventually a special anti-Beekeeper merc team, which is where the movie really goes off the rails. I've never seen so many special units of special forces in one movie.
So what starts out as quite a grounded revenge thriller, very quickly escalates into a videogame styled beat 'em up complete with roided-up mercs with dodgy accents hired by the admin of the President of the US? Would the US President really use ultra-violent mercs? Probably not. Should also point out that the US President is once again portrayed as a woman in this movie because clearly that's the new trend (remnants of Hollywood's hopes from the recent US election).
But did I enjoy this frantic kickassery? Well...yes actually! Yes this was an enjoyable revenge action thriller. There is absolutely nothing original here but what you get is well made and you do want to see the bad guys get taken out. My only question is, how much longer can Statham get away with basically playing the same action man character? Because let's be honest, the inevitable sequence to this will probably not do as well. So there you go, another Statham action franchise that will probably get a couple sequels which will all be exactly the same and burn out very quickly. Wash, rinse, and repeat eh Hollywood.
7/10
