We are all aware of the term mass surveillance and what our world governments do to keep our data afloat in the market. You either do it for tracking terrorists or sell it to private companies for profit. The US along with its five eye members do this through signal intelligence but a large part is still used in the PRISM program that is controlled by a few US tech giants. The Indian government has also implemented the Aadhaar system for the same purpose and with its new forced drive for DigiYatra at airports even the facial data is taken care of. Most world democracies that are growing to be powerful economies do this openly in the name of protecting their sham democracy. At this point of time, there’s no difference between a communist, socialist, or a democratic setup.

The movie The Beekeeper tries to spin a story around this premise and shows risks involved when the mined data goes to the wrong hands. The character Derek Danforth (played by Josh Hutcherson) uses the software developed by the intelligence agency to create wealth and rig the elections to help his mother win and become the US president. But, the story is spun across the character Adam Clay (played by Jason Stathom) who combats this situation only for personal reasons. Though the premise of the movie is nice, the story falls flat due to its poor script and editing. The script would have made more sense if the story kicked off at a juncture of winning elections and then opening its secret to the audience. Instead the flawed script chose to start the story from the beekeeper’s point of view and his personal vengeance without setting any background for the deep personal revenge. The audience never gets to see the deep connection between the older lady who got robbed by the hackers and the beekeeper, Adam Clay.

Yet the film could have survived if the script was edited properly. The director and editor duo David Ayer and Geoffrey O’Brien have only directed one decent 2014 movie, Fury, starring Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, and Logan Lerman. Their rest of the work is unknown to me. Having said that, I didn’t have high hopes for this movie either. The stunts and acting are at the sub par level and there’s no interesting take on the ground. It felt as if this movie was just made out of hurriedness. The casting is questionable as none of the characters were able to convince the audience as to what is happening in the movie.

While the premise of the movie holds true in our current times, the execution is what disturbs me. I guess none of the movies that I have seen after 2016 Snowden have that touch to the reality of what has been going around us. If you’re aware of the news, you might want to remember about the Pandora Papers that have named several corrupt politicians around the world including Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Now, whether the hard earned money of the US citizens and Europe should be funneled to Ukraine is entirely up to the politics and like in any sham democracy, the people don’t have the right to say or do anything. Don’t you think, we deserve a decent thriller movie based on that, not a comic take on such sensitive issues such as 2019 The Laundromat or this The Beekeeper.