3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): A Working Man

2025, David Ayer (The Beekeeper) -- download

I normally enter something into the post stub as I create it, because the gawds know my brain will soon dribble out any memory of a middling movie very quickly. And it has; its going to take some effort and some reading of other reviews to remember what I saw here.

That's not a good thing, no? At least movies that annoy you are memorable in that way.

I am not going to repeat my "oh yeah, I actually like David Ayer" but I will say I am surprised that he didn't end up doing a sequel to The Beekeeper, a movie that was entirely a setup for a franchise, but did end up following it with another rote Statham actioner. It's based on a novel by comic book writer Chuck Dixon, and done as a co-writing effort between Ayer and Sylvester Stallone. I have no comment on that collaboration beyond, "...huh." The Dixon novels are those pulp paperback "adventure" type novels (though calling them that is a reach) that someone's uncle would read, folding the covers back, tucking them into the glovebox of their pickup truck. They are short, unfettered, violent books about men being (stereotypically macho) men, meting out justice as it is needed. I would liken them to modern westerns. I am not adverse to the idea of them, in principal, but they all too often come with toxic masculinity and toxic politics in tow.

Of note, Dixon also slid from manly-man comic fiction into trollish alt-right rhetoric, which while the mindset lends itself to violent men fiction, it probably means I won't ponder reading these works.

The movie starts with unspoken exposition over the credits, explaining that our lead character was in the military, first the British and then collaborative actions with the US -- a specialist involved in counter-terrorism. And he has retired to the construction business, where he works with Joe Garcia and his family as a foreman. He is Levon Cade, a Good Man, a restrained man of violence as shown by an opening sequence where he deals with loan sharks hassling one of his crew. He is also struggling to have a relationship with his daughter because her grandfather, and legal guardian, blames Cade for the suicide death of his daughter. But the Garcias love Cade and he them.

Then Jenny Garcia, the smart, sassy teen daughter who helps her father run the company, goes out with her friends, fake IDs in hand, and gets kidnapped. Cade, with his particular set of skills, is asked by Joe to get her back. At first he says No, not wanting to return to a life of violence, but his best bud, the  blind gunnery sergeant hiding in the woods, convinces him that only Cade can do what is needed for the Garcia family.

Speeding things up -- its the Russian Mafia. More precisely, one of its high ranking members has a douche bag of a son who traffics girls to... elite clientele. Jenny was just in the wrong club on the wrong night. 

I have to think about why I like to start with detailed setups and then trail into... summaries and commentary. Maybe its because I like the potential of setups but the rest often becomes kill rinse repeat.

Like any of these movies, there is a certain thrill seeing a capable violent man deal with the Bad Guys. As we are still chasing after the next John Wick, there are going to be a lot of these middling movies, and many many more of the Straight To ones, the trash on the bottom shelf of the video store. Ayer tried to do something with style, but the style was ... odd. The Russian Bad Guys were outrageous and flashy, something that worked in The Tax Collector but here, seem clownish. There is a character in the background of The Fifth Element named Baby Ray, looking like he just stepped out of French Revolution movie. Add a bit more club-vibe to that and you get the douche-bag Russian mobster's look n feel, and that of his sycophants. 

When they get as far as actually rescuing Jenny, in a bizarre abandoned country mansion that the douche-bag Russian uses for his uber-illegal parties (no level of debauchery is denied), things become almost surreal. The house is in ruins for the most part, but parts of the interior are incredibly decked out in almost goth design choices. And there are trees on its lawn that can only be described as the real life sized  versions of the ones in front of the haunted house on a model train set -- think Beetlejuice. Why? Style? Effect? Its just so distantly peripheral to what is happening on screen, it makes no sense.  But the bigger point is that Jenny is strong and willful and capable, having already freed herself (but recaptured) once, and you get the idea there was an entire act where Cade and her work together to... do something to the Russian mobsters. But no, once they are away, the last of the Russian mobsters aware of Cade is told by his bosses that its done, its over, its been too expensive already. Any repercussions can be left for the sequel which will never happen -- again, this is most definitely not the next John Wick.