The Beekeeper: Buzzes with guilty pleasure

The Beekeeper (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong violene, pervasive profanity, sexual references and drug use

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang 

There’s nothing like starting the new year with a vicarious revenge saga, particularly when the villain has been concocted for maximum audience satisfaction.

 

Having located the building that houses the illegal phishing call center that victimized
his friend, Adam (Jason Statham, left) promises to burn it to the ground ... which two
security guards find amusing. Until they don't...

Jason Statham continues to kick ass with pizzazz at age 56, with that grim, go-to scowl that always means somebody’s about to suffer well-deserved damage; The Beekeeper clearly has been fashioned around his crowd-pleasing strengths. Although the third act succumbs to excess that only a superhero could endure and survive, his occasional flinty smile and taciturn one-liners will keep viewers happy.

Director David Ayer is a veteran of action-packed thrillers; he and editor Geoffrey O’Brien move things along at a lively clip.

 

Kurt Wimmer’s screenplay is a long way from Shakespeare, but he sets the stage cleverly, and definitely knows how to punch our buttons.

 

The story opens quietly, shadowing beekeeper Adam Clay (Statham) as he lovingly cares for his hives, carefully scrapes the raw honey from combs, then processes that into jars of sweet syrup. He works and lives in a large barn rented from elderly Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), who greatly admires the way that Adam and his bees have transformed her once-dilapidated gardens into things of beauty.

 

Alas, on this particular day, while Adam works outside, Eloise’s computer is hit with what appears to be a security alert. Understandably concerned — and the always regal Rashad is radiant, even when flustered — she calls the number on the screen. 

 

We see what she doesn’t: The call is routed to a scam center run by slick, slimeball conman Boyd Garnett (David Witts), who overcomes Eloise’s uncertainty — “Yes, you could call your bank first, but you’ll lose all your files” — with the smooth-talking élan of considerable experience.

 

This credibly written sequence could be extracted as an effective public service announcement: People, don’t do this at home!

 

The glee with which Boyd reels her in, to the delight of the equally skeevy dozens fleecing their own victims in the call center, is truly appalling. And, sadly, Eloise succumbs.

 

But she isn’t an average mark; along with several personal accounts, she manages a charity fund of more than $2 million ... all of which vanishes in an electronic heartbeat.

 

Eloise’s next move is tragic.

 

Adam’s subsequent reaction is cold fury.

 

Love & Friendship: Witty and delightful

Love & Friendship (2016) • View trailer 
4 stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang

I wonder if late 18th century aristocrats actually were so unswervingly polite with each other, or whether that’s an affectation we’ve grown to expect from Jane Austen stories.

Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) has designs on the much younger Reginald
DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel), a potential match that horrifies his sister and their parents.
Lady Susan couldn't care less about their objections, so the question remains: Can
anything save the poor lad from this black widow's clutches?

Whatever the actual truth, dramatic adaptations of Austen’s tales always are a treat, in great part because of the diabolically deceptive manner in which characters cut each other dead, with such cleverly scathing turns of phrase ... always delivered quietly, with a disarming smile that leaves the victim in stunned silence.

Director/scripter Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship has many such delectable moments, with plenty of tart dialog exchanged between the various good-hearted characters who do their best to survive encounters with the predatory schemer in their midst. The film is based on a lesser-known Austen work: the epistolary novella Lady Susan, likely written in the 1790s, before any of her published longer works, and then withheld. It remained unseen for half a century after her death, until a nephew published it in 1871.

Aside from its relative brevity, Lady Susan differs from Austen’s “classic” works — most notably Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma — in that its “heroine” is neither honorable nor admirable. Lady Susan Vernon is selfish, conniving and utterly ruthless, caring not a whit for the bruised or shattered feelings of those left in her wake.

In short, she’s a monster.

And yet, as played here to saucy, unapologetically haughty perfection by Kate Beckinsale, she’s utterly irresistible.

From a safe distance.

The saga begins as the recently widowed Lady Susan flees a scandal, choosing to “hide out” at Churchill, the estate of her in-laws, Charles Vernon (Justin Edwards) and his wife, Catherine DeCourcy Vernon (Emma Greenwell). Charles is magnanimous, by nature believing the best in everybody; Catherine is wary, recalling how her marriage was so vociferously opposed by Lady Susan.

Still, Lady Susan now appears chastened and friendly; Catherine cautiously hopes for the best.

She should have gone with her first instinct.