Movie review
January 8, 2024 · 106 min · R
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
The Beekeeper is a 2024 action thriller starring Jason Statham as Adam Clay, a quiet beekeeper in rural Massachusetts who is revealed as a former elite operative from a secret government program. After his elderly landlady dies by suicide following a phishing scam that wipes out her savings and charity funds, Clay launches a violent one-man campaign that climbs the chain of corporate and elite corruption. The story uses straightforward revenge plotting and bee metaphors for protecting society, with minor audience-visible elements including diverse supporting actors in FBI and landlady roles plus one brief exchange where a character raises racial inequity in policing.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The Beekeeper.
Woke representation / casting
Diverse actors fill the landlady (Phylicia Rashad) and FBI agent (Emmy Raver-Lampman) roles; the latter drew specific complaints from some viewers as appearing DEI-motivated, though both fit story logic without central emphasis or swaps.
Woke political dialogue
Core dialogue centers on scams, justice, and corruption; one brief exchange has the FBI agent invoking racial bias in how the protagonist is treated, which some anti-woke viewers called out as unnecessary identity insertion.
Identity-driven story themes
The narrative stays focused on personal loss, revenge, and dismantling a criminal network; no identity politics, gender, or race-based arcs drive the plot or character growth.
Western institutional / cultural critique
The film portrays corporate data-mining scams and high-level enablers as corrupt and harmful to ordinary people, with an extralegal “Beekeepers” group enforcing justice; this reads as anti-greed vigilantism rather than modern activist framing of systemic identity issues.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Niche conservative reviews and viewer comments specifically criticized the racial-inequity dialogue and perceived DEI casting as injecting identity politics; complaints exist but stay limited to online discussions and specialized sites with no broad public campaign.
Creator track record context
Statham and Block show conservative-leaning or neutral profiles; Ayer and Hubbard have mild industry-typical diversity notes from past work; Wimmer, Marinas, Long, Donaldson, and Krieg have no documented activist or identity-driven patterns.
Production
