12 | January | 2024 | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

In terms of well-done revenge movies, with a great opening idea, the new Jason Statham movie “The Beekeeper” is one of the best films of its kind I have ever seen and clearly the best action movie that Statham has ever starred with the lead role.

What draws you in, is the start of this movie, where an older woman Eloise Parker, played very well by Phylicia Rashad is at her laptop and like so many millions of us have seen, she receives a message on her screen that says, “call this number, your computer’s hard drive may be corrupted”. For those of us who have no real computer experience, calling the phone number is a natural thing that too many people would do, out of fear of losing important data on their computer. The other reason why so many call the number is that decent human beings can sometimes have a very hard time understanding just how disgusting the lowlife in this world can be. Who are these animals who prey on old people, try to scam, trick, and ultimately steal billions of dollars every year from so many good human beings. Life savings are stolen, representing years or decades of hard work. Too many victims commit suicide, realizing that their entire lives have been destroyed by the worst kind of criminal.

Adam Clay, played very well by Jason Statham is the neighbor and close friend of Eloise Parker, and once he finds out what happened to her, he embarks on a vendetta to destroy the entire organization that exists to collect data to find the right victims and steal money from millions of people, using technology and the internet. It turns out that Clay’s profession as a beekeeper was also his code name in a covert part of the CIA that gave Clay the highest level of Karate and hand-to-hand combat skills. What follows are the expected over-the-top and standard Statham Karate scenes, this time more violent and insane than some of Stathan’s previous movies. The ability of Adam Clay to kill so many, mostly FBI agents, and not be injured and killed himself is as crazy and implausible as any of the 4 John Wick movies. Regardless, the action scenes are as well done and impressive as I have seen in any Statham movie.

This film also stars Minnie Driver who plays Director Janet Harward of the FBI, in a surprisingly small role. Jeremy Irons plays Wallace Westwyld the CEO of a parent company that supports the many warehouses of criminals that spend all day preying on thousands of victims. I was surprised to see Irons in this movie because even though this movie is good, it is normally below the higher quality films that Irons has made in the past.

The only objection I had with this story is that the number of FBI agents that Adam Clay killed, seemed way out of proportion, considering that he was trying to wipe out a company comprised of the worst kind of criminals and the FBI agents were only trying to do their jobs.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are once again wrong at 69%, with my rating a solid 85% for a very well-done action/revenge movie.

The new movie “American Fiction” is different and highly unusual. However, unlike the recent garbage movies “Poor Things”, “Eileen”, and last year’s horrific “Everything Everywhere All At Once” this film is different good, not different horrible.

Jeffrey Wright plays Monk Ellison who is a college professor and frustrated writer, who for years has failed to publish or make money as an author, despite the highly intelligent quality novels he has written. As a black author, Monk is frustrated because it seems that the wealthy white publishers that always reject his work, want a “black novel”. A book that has foul language and violent themes, or as they called it, “a black book”. Monk’s integrity as an author always prevented him from writing a book like this, just to make money, but due to recent financial issues with his mother, who now needs to live in an adult care center, as a joke, Monk writes a black book, filled with crime, murder, and bad language. Much to Monk’s surprise as well as his publisher Arthur played by John Ortiz, Monk’s book, written as a lark, becomes a huge hit with a publisher that always rejected his previous books. Monk writes this book with a fake name and even puts out a news report that he is an on-the-run fugitive, who committed a crime that was never revealed. This adds even more interest to this novel, which shows very well the insanity of social media and comparing anything that has great quality as opposed to something that is popular at the moment, and all about making money.

There are numerous side stories in this screenplay, including Monk’s sister Lisa Ellison, played by Tracee Ellis Ross, and his brother Clifford played by Sterling K. Brown. It was good to see Sterling K. Brown in arguably his first good movie role since the end of the outstanding TV series “This is Us”. Monk’s mother is played by singer/actor Leslie Uggams, who still has a prolific acting career at age 79.

This story has a very unusual ending, something never seen before, where alternate ideas are proposed to a movie producer Wiley Valdespino played by Adam Brody. Once again, in order to be different in any movie, there is no need to be completely insane, which unfortunately seems to be a new and idiotic trend with some recent bad movies.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for American Fiction are a very high 93%, with my rating a high 88% and firm recommendation.