Since his breakout in the early 2000s, Jason Statham has become ubiquitous—a staple in modern cinema. When I was learning how to do a cockney accent for my college mock trial team, I primarily relied upon a YouTube video called “Learn the Cockney Accent with Jason Statham.” Mr. Statham does not actually appear in the video; he is only a guy who gives his best impression of the actor, which is only made possible by how strong of a fixture he is.
What does this have to do with his latest actioner, A Working Man? It simply emphasizes why Statham has been a mainstay for so long; his specific brand of cockney accent and action skills are all one needs for a serviceable action flick.
Based on the first novel in Chuck Dixon’s Levon Cade book series, Statham stars as Cade, a former special forces soldier who trades violence for a steady job working in construction. His two joys in life are his daughter Merry (Isla Gie) and his friendship with his boss Joe (Michael Peña), who helped Cade get back on his feet after his time in the military. Unfortunately, the rest of Cade’s life is quite miserable as Cade’s wife committed suicide while he was serving overseas, something which his father-in-law blames him for as he attempts to gain full custody of Merry as retribution.
This leaves Cade strapped for cash and sleeping in his car to cover the legal bills. And to top it all off, Joe’s daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) gets kidnapped by human traffickers while celebrating a successful first semester of college, prompting Cade to upend the peaceful life he has established and go on a blood-soaked warpath to save his friend’s daughter.
If this seems vaguely familiar, it’s probably not only due to the recent influx of the “middle-aged man who was once violent is now peaceful but gets involuntarily thrust into the violence again” genre but because Statham’s most recent film credit was last year’s action movie The Beekeeper. In that film, Statham plays former special ops agent Adam Clay (the character’s names are even similar!), who has found a new life as a beekeeper until someone close to him is targeted by bad guys, leading him to seek bloody revenge.
Not only that but The Beekeeper and A Working Man are both directed by David Ayer, a fact which is proudly professed on the promotional posters. If, at any point, you were expecting anything but a slight reskin with this movie, that’s on you.
A Working Man is also a reunion for Statham and fellow action hero Sylvester Stallone, though Stallone is doing his duty behind the camera as both a co-writer and producer, presumably brought on for his own action bona fides. Considering Jason Statham’s certified and proven track record combined with Stallone’s legacy of works like Rocky and the Rambo series, the action must be amazing, right?
Meh.
There are some genuinely exhilarating moments of action and violence in the film, the best scenes mostly being close-quarters melees like a particularly crunchy slugfest in the back of a bar or a brawl in the back of an ambulance. There were some fun and inventive uses of everyday items as weapons, like a fresh pot of coffee and a cow’s skull. The scene teased in the trailers, where Cade threatens a member of the Russian mob over the edge of a pool, is exciting and scratches that power fantasy itch.
The rest is inconsistent at best. Some scenes give clear open shots of the action, while others are choppy, jump-cut-ridden barrages of visual noise. Some are intense clashes between Cade and hired goons, and others are anticlimactic tension quickly ended by a quick knife stroke or a couple of bullets without much actual combat. In the action genre, the fight scenes should be the film’s central draw and keep the audience engaged and yearning for the story to continue. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case here, and by the end of the film, Ayer and Stallone treat the fight scenes almost like a chore and an obligation rather than a source of fun.
As the badass enemies go out with a whimper Ayer and Stallone illustrate that they are having too much fun creating bad guys, then rushing to tie up loose ends and end the story as the movie runs too long.
The story isn’t in much better shape and doesn’t do anything that other action revenge thrillers haven’t done before and done better. It’s all fairly run of the mill: our hero is wronged, does some light detective work, systematically dismantles a criminal empire, and then rides off triumphantly into the sunset.
Besides the aforementioned similarities to The Beekeeper, A Working Man most similarly apes the tone and plot of the Taken and John Wick films while doing nothing that made those films so successful. Where Bryan Mills had the pressure of a deadline before his daughter was sold off into sexual slavery and must speed run through France’s criminal underbelly, Cade takes a more leisurely approach to save Jenny despite the same time pressure and the threat of her being sold off or killed.
There is no real indicator of how much time is passing, and thus no sense of urgency. A Working Man attempts to set up a shadowy and highly connected network of organized crime à la John Wick’s High Table but doesn’t come anywhere near that sense of mystery, intrigue, respect and danger.
I don’t think anyone who goes into a movie like this expects Oscar-worthy writing, but Ayer and Stallone are barely doing the minimum. What an action movie may lack in substance, it should attempt to make up for in style. However, in this case, they decided that some heavy-handed, tough-guy imagery would be enough.
At this point, I think the only real draw of this movie and those who like it is just watching Jason Statham do the Jason Statham thing. He shows up as the tough man trying to lead a soft life, then spends the rest of the runtime scowling and growling at anyone unfortunate to be in his path before violently and remorselessly dispatching them. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s still incredibly effective and somehow entertaining, no matter how many times I’ve seen him perform this role before.
The brutality, efficiency, focus, and darkness Cade displays throughout the film, as well as the tenderness he feels for his daughter and the Garcia family, feel authentic to Statham’s portrayal. I would attribute any shortcomings to the writing rather than the acting here. In short, if you like watching Jason Statham being the tough guy hero, you’ll like him here too.
The only other notable actors in the cast are Michael Peña, Arianna Rivas and Isla Gie, though they all have limited screen time. In his few scenes, Peña steals the show as the concerned and grieving father, tugging hard on the audience’s heartstrings. Gie is wonderfully charming as Cade’s daughter Merry, full of quips, optimism, love for her father and a sense of precocious maturity that would manifest in a girl with a troubled home life like hers.
Rivas plays Jenny with a bright and likable energy, strength and resilience that you can’t help but root for. The fight and fire in the character are refreshing and prevent her from being just another damsel to be saved, but one who does her best to keep herself alive despite the odds against her. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast and characters are just kind of there.
Despite its flaws, I still liked A Working Man. The film isn’t good by any measure. Not even close. Between the two films, A Working Man is a step down from The Beekeeper, though A Working Man has more fun and quippier moments. If you can turn your brain off and enjoy the film for the dumb fun it’s trying to be, it’s still pretty entertaining. Would I have been mad if I had paid to see this in theaters? No. Will I ever watch it again? Again, no, not unless someone asks me to watch it with them.
A Working Man isn’t quite in the “so bad, it’s good” category of films, but it’s a mostly passable, mindless action film. With its barely present story and decent action, Jason Statham playing a typical Jason Statham manly hero role remains the main draw here.
Only time will tell if the rest of the Levon Cade books will be brought to the big screen. However, when Statham inevitably ends up starring in his next role as a dairy farmer with a shockingly violent past, a school teacher with a shocking, violent past, a pizza chef with a shockingly violent past, etc., I’ll still find my butt in the theater seat, stupidly giggling at whatever shenanigans they have him doing next.
Rating: 5.5/10