Usually, my weekend cinema trips involve one movie.  That is because the typical release schedule, while having a few options at the end of a week, has one standout that is hyped as the main attraction.  This makes sense to an extent.  The film industry is already fragile, so if production companies are going to go through the trouble of putting one of their products into wide distribution, they want as many eyeballs on it as possible.  In other words, they do not want competition.  I have yet to figure out the decisions that go into a streaming only release, but that is a separate issue.  Every once in a while, though, you get a weekend that requires multiple theater outings.  This was the case in January of 2024 when The Book of Clarence (2024) and Mean Girls (2024) came out on the same date.  Mean Girls was the blockbuster that drew the most attention, and The Book of Clarence interested me as a practicing Catholic.  There was a third title that opened at that time, The Beekeeper (2024), and I figure now is as good a time as any to get caught up.

Unsurprisingly, it is The Beekeeper’s job to catch bees.  However, sometimes they are called in to take care of a hives of wasps that can threaten the honey produced pollinators on which our ecosystem so heavily relies.  This is what Adam Clay (Jason Statham) is doing for Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad).  Their relationship goes beyond this one favor.  At some unseen point in the past, Eloise had rented out her barn for Adam’s beekeeping business (hobby?), and he had also done some things to improve the retired teacher’s land.  In recognition of his many services, she invites him to dinner that night and he accepts, commenting on how she has been the only one to care for him.  In the intervening hours, she does some online banking.  In the middle of her internet usage, she gets one of those phishing notices on her screen by which people of her age sadly and too often are victimized.  The person on the other end runs through a script, while muted playing to a crowd of like-minded hackers, the long and short of which is that all her savings are stolen.  When Adam finally comes over with a jar of honey, he finds that things are amiss and Eloise dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.  He is also greeted by her angry daughter, Verona Parker (Emmy Raver-Lampman), who is also a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).  Understandably, she believes him to be responsible until the evidence unequivocally shows that he is innocent.  Once released, she comes to the barn to apologize, commenting on how her mother had been the victim of phishing.  Now, to this point, you might think Adam Clay is just a friendly neighbor, which is true.  He is also a beekeeper, which also might seem obvious, but in this movie it means he is part of a secretive organization of highly trained killers whose mission is to right societal wrongs.  They use a lot of beekeeping metaphors to describe their activities.  Adam, despite being retired, makes a call to his former handlers, who are able to obtain the location of the people who had targeted Eloise.  He then proceeds to that building, easily beats up all the security personnel, douses the structure with gasoline, plants some explosives for good measure, and tells everyone to get out before he detonates.  The man in charge of this branch, Mickey Garnett (David Witts), informs his boss, Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), of the damage.  As chief executive offier (CEO) of Danforth Enterprises, the parent company doing the data mining and scamming, Derek uses his millions to hire a bunch of people to go kill Adam.  They fail, of course, and get ready for a lot of this, which gets tedious.  In the aftermath, Derek turns to Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), Danforth Enterprises chief of security and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  All Derek knows at this point is that they have a problem with a beekeeper, which sounds innocuous to him, but Wallace knows how much trouble is coming for Derek. Meanwhile, Verona and her partner, Matt Wiley (Bobby Naderi), are beginning to learn just how dangerous is Adam through their own investigation.  Though Verona sympathizes with Adam’s goal, she is sworn to stop him.  Hence, she and an FBI special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team are on hand for his next target.  So, too, are a group of heavily armed men hired by Wallace to protect Derek’s investment.  Predictably, Adam appears, incapacitates the law enforcement, kills Wallace’s men, and destroys another call center.  While doing so, he is finally able to learn the identity of the person behind everything.  We also find out at this point that Derek is not just some rich twenty-something, but is the son of the president of the United States, Jessica Danforth (Jemma Redgrave).  Matt and Verona uncover this fact soon thereafter, but also trace Derek’s ill-gotten money all the way back to the White House.  This puts the most powerful person in the world at risk.  At Wallace’s suggestion, they move mother and son to their seaside estate, ostensibly to have a party for Derek.  They also surround the home with Secret Service and other government agents, not to mention a few other private security goons for Adam to kill.  As he makes his inevitable way through the armed men in the house, Derek and Jessica are speaking to Jackson Prigg (Don Gilet), deputy director of the FBI, who has brought forward the allegations of Danforth’s crooked dealings.  Jessica wants to go public, but Derek snaps and murders Jackson.  Before Derek can do anymore damage, Adam puts a bullet in the young man’s head and jumps out the window.  This last move is observed by Verona, who watches as Adam disappears over a wall, and eventually into the water.

It should probably come as no surprise that Adam escapes alive at the end of The Beekeeper.  He sustains a few injuries, but otherwise he appears invincible.  Look, this is nothing other than an action film, with a little political intrigue thrown in for good measure.  I found the latter of those themes more interesting than any of the kicking, punching, and shooting.  These beekeepers do not answer to any law, and there is some dialog about how they exact justice when human institutions fail us.  That is not a Catholic position to take, though there is some precedence within the Church for underscoring societal problems.  It was St. Augustine who first said that an unjust law is no law at all, something that has inspired people in many places and times in the centuries since he wrote it.  He believed that the rules by which we are governed need to align with divine principles, something he referred to as natural law.  Ideas like “thou shall not kill” or “though shall not steal” are enshrined in Judeo-Christian culture, and in many others, which is a left-handed argument for the existence of God, by the way.  What is happening in the movie is that the people in government are profiting from the suffering of others.  What Derek and his associates are doing is also a legal gray area.  They are not forcing their victims, typically the elderly like Eloise, to give them access to their bank accounts.  Instead, Eloise and others are preyed upon for their lack of technical knowledge and being told they have help, for a “small fee,” of course.  That scenario is clearly not right.  Adam sees it, as does Verona, though she approaches the situation with a mostly admirable restraint.  She wants revenge, but she seeks justice.  Sadly, she comes around to Adam’s views when she lets him go.  This is why I am thankful for being a Christian.  We do our best with such messy matters with the tools God gave us.  As long as we are honest and upright before Him, we are blameless.  Anything beyond that, like murdering several people, is sin.

Thus, it is beyond the pale for me to recommend The Beekeeper.  It is violently repetitive, but it is the revenge factor that makes it not worth the view.  It is true that human institutions can, and will, fail us, no matter who is in power.  That does not mean we should celebrate a one-man army seeking retribution.