‘A Working Man’ Review: Jason Statham's Latest Blue Collar Beat-em-up is a Dumb-as-bricks Delight
At this point, you should know what you're getting into when you see a Statham flick.
‘A Working Man’ Review: Jason Statham's Latest Blue Collar Beat-em-up is a Dumb-as-bricks Delight
After watching last year’s unexpectedly enjoyable The Beekeeper, I found myself instantly pumped for the inevitable follow-up team-up between director David Ayer and Essex-accented action star Jason Statham. I didn’t expect it'd be just over a year later, nor did I expect the same ol’ “blue-collar worker who once was a government killer gets back in the saddle for personal reasons” formula. Spin the wheel, fill in the blanks: in A Working Man, it’s “former black ops” and“works construction”. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, because the dads are going to see it. Though A Working Man is far from The Beekeeper's quality in terms of both direction and premise, the sheer 80s-style goofiness that fuels it makes for a fun time at the movies. It’s stupid and overlong as hell, but damn is it entertaining.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
MPA Rating: R (Strong violence, language throughout, and drug content.)
Runtime: 1 Hour and 56 Minutes
Production Companies: Black Bear, Cedar Park Entertainment, Punch Palace Productions, Balboa Productions
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Director: David Ayer
Writer: Sylvester Stallone, David Ayer
Cast: Jason Statham, David Harbour, Michael Peña, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas, Noemi Gonzalez, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Maximilian Osinski, Max Croes, Kristina Poli, Andrej Kaminsky, Isla Gie, Alana Boden
Release Date: March 28, 2025
After years in black ops, UK-raised Chicago resident Levon Cade (Statham) lives a simple life as a construction worker for the Garcia & Family Construction company. He lives in a beaten-down one-room shack, working towards being able to afford an attorney to get custody of his daughter (Isla Gie) from his grouchy father-in-law. At work, Levon is adored by his co-workers and bosses, Joe (Michael Peña) and Carla (Noemí González) Garcia, and their daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas). They even give him home-cooked meals made by their relatives. One night, Jenny is kidnapped by human traffickers. Levon arrives at work the following day to find the Garcias distressed. Knowing of his shadowy past,they ask him to find her. Levon initially refuses, turning down tens of thousands of dollars, but eventually accepts out of compassion, free of charge. In his search, Levon uncovers the Chicago criminal underbelly, facing drug lords,biker gang leaders and even the Russian mafia.
A Statham Saturday Morning Cartoon
At this point, you should know what you're getting into when you see a Statham flick. Leave that brain at the door, hope to god there are good action set pieces, and expect a series of Statham-affiliated folks (this was co-written by Ayer and Expendables co-star Sylvester Stallone) to get on their green shit and reduce, reuse, recycle every action trope imaginable. While I want to give my switched-off brain the benefit of the doubt, the dialogue is laughably awful and unnatural. It's sometimes elevated by the kitschy, over-the-top performances by its supporting cast, but mostly it's just bad. Despite being based on the 2010s Levon Cade book series, A Working Man is an 80s late-night action thriller for people who grew up watching corny-ass Saturday morning cartoons in the late 20th century.
Like I said in my review of The Beekeeper, Statham is once again in his Bugs Bunny action hero mode. He's an agent of chaos, unthreatened by his adversaries, always one step ahead, disrespectfully talking shit in full confidence even when he’s at a disadvantage, and making several big bosses look as pissed as Yosemite Sam when they have egg on their face. Hence, Bugs Bunny.
I can imagine Stallone and Ayer cloning writer Kurt Wimmers’ (The Beekeeper, Expendables 4) Clay to make Levon. Familiar as it may be, Statham as a Bugs Bunny type is what makes these Ayer/Statham flicks so enjoyable. The earnest self-awareness of a Statham movie, knowing his protagonist's going to come out on top, is par for the course and you’re in for the ride, witnessing his body count rise in gleeful bloody fashion.
The whimsical world of enemies and ex-military allies who feel straight out of an episode of G.I Joe, such as David Harbour as a blind weapons expert, are the final key to making A Working Man unfold like an animated adventure. Every set piece finds Levon in increasingly sillier spaces, facing off foes with cartoonish over-the-top accents. For example, Eve Mauro and Emmett J. Scanlan, who portray Jenny's captors Artemis and Viper, are so animated in their Russian accents they might as well be imitating Boris and Natasha from Rocky & Bullwinkle. Then, in what feels like a different movie altogether, Chidi Ajufo lays the swagger on thick as a Dutch, the biker gang lord who sits upon an Iron Throne-styled, um, throne, made of motorcycle frames in a secret room of a honky-tonk bar — an imaginative touch by production designer Nigel Evans.
Nothing a Little Duct Tape Can’t Fix
While Ayer was at the height of his powers on The Beekeeper, his tight action filmmaking now finds itself buried in the Walgreens bargain bin. This time around, you have a ton of breakneck paced medium and closeup shots fit for an ADHD crowd that are then bogged down by Fred Raskin's frustratingly clunky editing, like patching up a gash with duct tape. Mind you, Raskin edited James Gunn's last four films and Quentin Tarantino's last three, yet his work here is that of a high school student just getting the hang of Premiere Pro.
Additionally, for something made for the most simple-minded dads, A Working Man's plotting is increasingly convoluted to the point of frustration. As Levon delves further down into this underworld, it becomes Wacky Races but for Chicago crime lords. It devotes so much time to introducing a set of C-list foes that you realize it's all leading up to a climax of those C-listers converging long before the movie takes the overlong route to get there. The final fight presents no real challenge for Statham, and the sheer lack of stakes makes the ending fizzle. There's no reason why what's ultimately a campy Taken clone should be two hours long, especially with how poorly it's edited.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Though A Working Man is a dumb-as-bricks formula flick and far inferior to The Beekeeper, Jason Statham's game performance and the retro animated vibes get the job done.
