David Ayer is a capable action director whose films work best when he gives men doing dangerous jobs time to talk. We rate that patient attention more highly than the blunt violence that can take over.
Fi1m perspective
In The Beekeeper (2024), Jason Statham wears a canvas jacket and cap and barely moves his face. David Ayer lets him stand still long enough for the pose to become funny. We laughed at that immobility, because the director gives an expressionless man time to look faintly absurd. It is a small piece of comic timing in a revenge thriller that is otherwise clean, brutal and disappointingly dim.
His earlier work gave conversation more room. His screenplay for Training Day (2001) established his reputation for Los Angeles police stories, before his directing debut with Harsh Times (2005). In End of Watch (2012), which he wrote and directed, the talk between two men in a patrol car made the film. We prefer the attention he pays to those conversations to the repeated explanations of hives in The Beekeeper. There is more to these men than their ability to hurt somebody.
Fury (2014) carried his research-led attention to detail into a Second World War tank crew drama. Then came Suicide Squad (2016) and Bright (2017), before the later action films, including A Working Man (2025). Those changes of setting have not removed his central interest in police, criminals and men whose methods deserve closer inspection.
The practical strengths remain apparent in The Beekeeper. Editor Geoffrey O’Brien keeps the fights legible, letting us see who is hitting whom and with what. Ayer stages the action with clear geography and an emphatic interest in the sound of breaking bones. It is coarse, but at least the force of a blow is not lost in the cutting.
The weakness is what fills the gaps. Raver-Lampman and Bobby Naderi trade hangover jokes that barely get a scene moving, while David Sardy and Jared Michael Fry’s low electronic score supplies more energy than the dialogue. Ayer can make room for Statham’s dry physical humour, yet he leaves the supporting players with little worth saying. That makes The Beekeeper a qualified choice even for an action evening. Start with End of Watch, where the men are worth listening to.
Biography
David Ayer is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He was born on 18 January 1968 in Champaign, Illinois, and grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Bethesda, Maryland. After moving to Los Angeles as a teenager, he enlisted in the United States Navy and served as a submariner.
Ayer wrote the screenplay for Training Day (2001). He made his directorial debut with Harsh Times (2005) and went on to write and direct End of Watch (2012). His other directing credits include Fury (2014), Suicide Squad (2016), Bright (2017), The Tax Collector (2020) and The Beekeeper (2024).
