Every New Year’s, my mom and her gang ask me to loan them a few movies to watch as they party the night away, playing cards and enjoying the festivities. And every year, something derails their plans, and they never watch what I give them. When I spoke with her on January 1st and asked what they did instead of watching my movies, she told me they “bought a movie on Netflix,” to which I replied, “Well, no, you don’t buy movies on Netflix – you pay one price and watch everything.” She was adamant that “No, we went to Netflix and bought that Kevin Costner movie where he plays the Governor who dies but has a cousin who is his double.” (That movie would be 1993’s Dave, starring Kevin Kline as both the President and a random look alike…but I knew what she meant). Eventually, I just asked her if Costner was any good in it.

I’ve learned not to argue too much with my mom over anything, least of all tech-related items, and to walk her through it in person next time we are together. I often wonder about those who don’t have someone easily accessible to discuss simple technical questions with. Our world is moving so quickly and updating at a pace that is hard for the savviest among us to stay at pace with. It’s easy to fall behind the pack and fall prey to online predators who know precisely the groups to go after in their unethical but often legally sound methods.

If it weren’t for the brutally explicit violence and freewheeling use of the F-bomb throughout, I’d be pleading with my mother and her friends to see The Beekeeper, starring a perfectly cast Jason Statham (Meg 2: The Trench) and directed with clenched-teeth grit by David Ayer (End of Watch, The Tax Collector). The core of Kurt Wimmer’s screenplay contains a valuably bloody lesson for the victims and victimizers of phishing scams. To the potential victims, it affirms that you should safeguard your online information at all costs. For the rogues thinking of scamming the elderly or vulnerable, you never know if your targets have friends in dark places.

A bleak nook is where Adam Clay (Statham) emerges from when his kindly neighbor Eloise (Phylicia Rashad, Creed) takes her life after her bank account, savings, life insurance plan, and charity fund are depleted by a slick phishing program. Developed by Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) and funneled through several call centers that take in millions of dollars from unsuspecting citizens, it uses a mixture of human emotional appeal and cybercrime to infiltrate quickly and decimate entirely. We barely meet Rashad’s character before she is gone, the pain (and embarrassment) of her actions too much to carry on.

In our brief time with her, we saw that she had been a positive force for Clay while he had been renting space on her land to tend to the bees he used for honey production. Retired from a clandestine organization within the government that trains unstoppable killers known as “Beekeepers” (they protect the hive!), Clay wants a quiet, solitary life. However, he has made room for Elosie. That peace is disrupted when he finds her body and eventually learns what transpired from Verona (Emmy Raver-Lampman, Blacklight), her daughter who works for the FBI. In short order, he locates the call center that mishandled Eloise and ensures their lines are shut down permanently. One call center isn’t enough, though, and Clay takes his vengeance on the road to the top of the ladder…but the rungs go higher than he could ever anticipate.

While I wouldn’t call myself a Jason Statham apologist, I am more apt to let the English actor off lightly for finding a groove and sticking with it. Early in his career, he made many films that were essentially indistinguishable from one another. Though he can’t pass up the payday of a franchise film (and he’s a welcome presence in those Fast and Furious flicks), I have noticed an uptick in the overall quality of his more recent one-and-done output. The ferocious kick in the pants of 2021’s Wrath of Man is in line with the bone-crunching viciousness on display in The Beekeeper, and Statham makes it almost to the end of the film without even breaking a sweat.

This is the kind of film that has located the nucleus of what audiences want to see and maximizes that entertainment factor tenfold. Wimmer’s (Point Break) screenplay doesn’t have to get anyone (audiences or the filmmakers) too far before we are hooked, and then it’s up to Ayer and an ace cast to maintain the breathless pace. Ayer has gathered a grand group of actors who know exactly the kind of film they are in.  Pay attention to how deadly serious Brits Minnie Driver (Rosaline) and Jeremy Irons (House of Gucci) are when having a whispered conversation that mentions “The Beekeeper” no less than seven times in as many sentences. Yet it doesn’t stray into camp or heavy convention but continues to push the limit on grimace-inducing knockouts of teeth, an impaling or three, and one jaw-dropping stunt with an elevator that will make you want to take the stairs for a few days.

Despite a too-abrupt ending after a finale that sticks a landing it nearly misses completely, The Beekeeper out Statham-s even the most energized Statham vehicle. The film is precisely what you’d want if paying top dollar for big-screen bold thrills in 2024, and fans of Statham will go wild for his silent rage approach to Clay.

Will we see another rancorous Beekeeper in the future, with or without Statham? While I don’t believe everything has to be franchised, this property has an intriguing potential for additional exploration, and an exceptional box office haul could help determine it.