[EXPRESSO] A Working Man (2025) | Baba Yogurt

I know what you’re thinking, what everyone was thinking after seeing the trailer: why isn’t this The Beekeeper 2?! I mean, i’m sure there’s a sequel on the way for that one, but this plain isn’t, it’s just another Jason Staham movie where he’s some ex-soldier or super assassin that has retired but he’s pulled back into his older life of violence due to some criminals hurting someone close to him, etc.

This time around he’s a construction worker and they kidnap the daughter of the family that owns and operates the construction company he works for, so he swears to get her back… which would be fine but he also has his own biological daughter to look after, as his wife is dead and the grandpa believes Jason Staham (again, not bothering to remember his character’s name, nobody will) isn’t a good parent. His quest brings him to find out a human trafficking ring, piss off the russian mafia, and accidentally become a John Wick-esque figure to them….

Honestly it feels like they mashed two scripts together, now only due to the plot feeling like it should be less convoluted (it’s not complicated) as the new characters that keep showing up just increasingly feel like they should be in a completely different Jason Staham movie, even more as they keep getting more cartoonish, like the foppish pervert that “bought” the girl just missing a Dracula cape, or the psycho super assassins under the big russian mafia honcho giving off strong vibes of videogame minibosses.

It’s just kinda weird, untentionally funny, and yes, makes the whole thing longer than it needs to.

It’s not awful or the worse, but let’s be honest, it’s just a stopgag release until The Beekeeper 2 or Fast And Furious X Part 2 come out.

[EXPRESSO] The Beekeeper (2024) | Sleeper Cell

Let’s start the year off with the new Jason Staham movie, The Beekeeper.

One merry day, a kindly but tech “un-savvy” old lady is scammed by one of those “call this number to recover your computer” operations, resulting in them draining all her money, even the 2 millions of the pro-bono teaching fund she was tasked with.

In utter despair, she commits suicide, and her daughter, working at the FBI, initially thinks is the man whom she found in her house, but he was simply her neighbour, a quiet man that worked as a beekeeper and was beyond grateful of the kindness bestowed upon him by the old lady.

So he sets out in a quest for revenge against those responsable, because he’s a beekeeper, but also a “beekeeper”, as the codename given to highly trained assassins, one-man army agents belonging to a super-secret government project, operating outside of the system to protect the system itself in case it becomes unstable or operated by bad actors.

Some very bad actors in this case, not that will stop Jason Staham to avenge her kindly neighbour by kicking ass, eventually crushing skulls and popping caps into anything that doesn’t wanna de-escalate scamming people, when the sheer magnitude of his one liners somehow doesn’t immediately scare the life out of the douchebag thugs and their untouchable masters.

It’s a decent action romp with some nice ideas that ultimately delivers a lot of satisfying graphic violence, the plot it’s essentially nothing new but the flair (and the “bee angle”) is nice enough, the action is enjoyably cheesy, and it’s a pretty straighforward narrative that doesn’t wast time nor tries to sequel bait.

It’s definitely better than most of the other movies Staham was in last year, this is decent, and very, very entertaining indeed.

[EXPRESSO] The Suicide Squad (2021) | King Shark is in it

Let me preface this by saying i find stupid the whole “release the [director’s name] cut” shtick, and i’m sorry, but i did saw the 2016’s Suicide Squad movie, and it was such a mess nothing would have “saved” it. Look, David Ayer it’s not that bad a director, at all, but he made a crap movie with Suicide Squad.

That’s it, nothing special, it happens and can happen to anyone, the world will go on.

You’re free to pursue this crusade if you will, Ayer has all the right to be happy about it (who wouldn’t?), but i personally don’t “get” it (what you’re gonna do next, request the Proyas’ cut for Gods Of Egypt?), honestly, and i was quite happy to see James Gunn give the concept another go.

So yeah, it’s the same idea of getting together a group of DC supervillains to send in a do-or-die important mission, using the expandable baddies instead of the superheroes themselves, this time tasked to take care of “Project Starfish” on a secluded island instead of an american city.

But yeah, it’s a bit surreal to see the same movie done twice in just a span of 5 years, even more since it has most of the same cast and selection of characters, as it’s supposed to be a sequel to the 2016’s movie, which explains some of it but still comes off as confusing since this is basically a re-do of the concept and doesn’t really require seeing the previous Suicide Squad movie, at all.

Honestly i loved it, it’s such a fun, bloody, stylish and funny take on the concept, it’s not just that it’s the FAR better execution of it so far, but it’s also pretty good on its own, with a lot of style and substance.