Tag: a-working-man

‘A Working Man’ receives 5.5 out of 10 stars.

Opening in theaters March 28 is ‘A Working Man,’ directed by David Ayer and starring Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas, Michael Peña, and David Harbour.

Related Article: Filmmaker David Ayer Talks ‘A Working Man’ and Directing Jason Statham

Initial Thoughts

Ford and Wayne. Scorsese and De Niro. Burton and Depp. Ayer and Statham. Well, okay, that last one doesn’t quite fit with the others, but there’s no question that director David Ayer and action star Jason Statham – working together for the second movie in a row after 2024’s surprise hit ‘The Beekeeper’ – have an intense creative connection, at least when it comes to making numbing, sadistically violent thrillers that fully embrace Ayer’s retrograde macho tendencies and Statham’s stoic, limited-range acting and admirably intense physicality.

In fact, with a few tweaks to the screenplay (co-written by Ayer and, of all people, Sylvester Stallone, from the novel ‘Levon’s Trade’ by Chuck Dixon), ‘A Working Man’ could almost be ‘The Beekeeper 2.’ But it’s not: while ‘The Beekeeper’ was smart enough amid its overall dopiness to deploy a unique villain – those phishing robocallers who bilk unsuspecting grandmas and grandpas out of their life savings – that genuinely touched a nerve with viewers, ‘A Working Man’ falls back on two of the most overused action movie tropes of recent years: Russian gangsters and human trafficking, with a light seasoning of ‘John Wick’-style weirdness to make you think it’s more interesting than it looks. But guess what: it’s not.

Story and Direction

That’s not to say we weren’t entertained by ‘A Working Man’; like ‘The Beekeeper,’ there’s something about the simplistic nature of its plot and protagonist – at least at first – that sucks us in, helped enormously by Statham’s oddball charisma and the sense that he’s playing the straight man inside his own cinematic joke. This time out, he’s former Royal Marines commando Levon Cade, whose origin story is sketched out under the opening credits: he’s done a lot of tough, sometimes bad stuff in all the world’s hot spots.

After 22 years of service, Levon now works as a foreman for a family-owned Chicago construction company, where the owners treat him like a member of their clan. But Levon can’t quite get the rest of his life together: he’s living in his car and fighting his ex-father-in-law – who views him as dangerous — for custody of his daughter (Isla Gie), following the suicide of his wife.

It’s because he’s trying to put that part of his life behind him that Levon is initially hesitant when his devastated boss Joe (Michael Peña) informs him that Joe’s teen daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) has been kidnapped during a night out with her friends and begs Levon to find her.

Levon’s reluctance lasts about three minutes, however: after a quick check-in with his former commando buddy, Gunny (David Harbour), who’s blind and now lives out in the woods with a convenient closetful of arms (“I am your weapons sommelier,” Harbour cracks), Levon gets to work. He quickly learns that Jenny has been snatched by members of a Russian crime cartel who plan to traffic her to high-paying customers with perverted tastes.

The rest of the movie follows a now well-worn formula as Levon blitzes his way through the Russian mob, from its foot soldiers to its captains to the boss’s sons. Also facing Levon’s wrath are a biker gang that deals drugs, a handful of rogue cops, and some genuine freaks brought in by the Russians to put Levon down (Ayer may have failed with his one superhero movie, ‘Suicide Squad,’ but his villains are getting more and more comic-booky).

As is standard, every single bullet fired at Levon misses, while he cuts the opposition down with ruthless machine-like efficiency and barely gets roughed up or scratched. Even one sequence when he finds himself at the mercy of two foppish Russians who wear matching outfits in different colors (“It’s our brand,” one explains) lasts only for a few moments. Levon frees himself and turns them into pulp in one of the film’s best sequences, an exciting brawl in the narrow confines of a careening van that pays tribute to the classic train fight from the James Bond film ‘From Russia with Love.’

But the deeper Levon wades into the world of ‘A Working Man,’ the less interesting it becomes. As we said earlier, the Russian villains and trafficking scheme are overused already, and Ayer’s attempts to make it weirder – such as the main Russian gangster being an almost Dracula-like figure, or the final battle taking place at a hidden casino/brothel where the oligarchal clientele dresses in finery and capes – are more head-scratching than anything else, just like the absurdly large, cartoonish moon that hovers over the film’s closing scenes.

Still, if you’re here to just see Statham kicking butt for the better part of two hours, ‘A Working Man’ remains your jam. Despite the more generic nature of the enemy, the repetitive structure of the screenplay, and the almost callous glee Ayer seems to take in having Statham execute people in some horrible ways (the rationale, we presume, is just how gross these folks are to begin with), this is the kind of mind-free crowd-pleaser that the star has cornered the market on. When you can see it, that is: Shawn White’s cinematographer is often dark and murky, especially during the climactic battles, while the editing tends to get a little spasmodic as well during the action set pieces.

Cast and Performances 

Sure, there’s a cast here and it even includes some name players, but Jason Statham is front and center as always – even if Levon, for all his problems, has no discernible character arc. Like Adam Clay from ‘The Beekeeper,’ he’s outraged by injustice and loyal to a fault, but once he’s committed to his mission, there are no longer any doubts or conflicts and he more or less finishes the film in the same place he started it.

Statham is a little more stone-faced here than he was in ‘The Beekeeper,’ although we do actually get to see him smile once or twice, particularly in the scenes with Levon’s daughter. About that, though: while Statham can kick the crap out of people convincingly all day long, he just doesn’t have the bandwidth to generate true fatherly warmth, as hard as he tries.

As for everyone else, the reliably quirky David Harbour and Michael Peña are wasted in too-brief appearances, with the latter disappearing after the first act and only showing up again briefly at the end (there’s also something vaguely racist with Ayer’s portrayal of Peña’s extended Latino family, who all seem to live in the same house together).

A potentially fun reunion between Statham and his ‘Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels’ mate Jason Flemyng is also woefully cut short, as Statham has many more members of the Russian crime world to plow through. Arianna Rivas’ Jenny explains in some helpful early exposition that her uncle taught her how to fight, so at least she does get to refreshingly push back against her captors. As for those captors, and the armies of Russian mafia soldiers that seem to endlessly crawl out of the woodwork, they range from “over-the-top” to “automaton,” with all of them having the personalities of characters in a first-person shooter.

Final Thoughts

In a way, ‘A Working Man’ is the cinematic equivalent of a first-person shooter, except you can see your avatar and it looks just like Jason Statham. And while the game can be fun while you’re playing it, you forget all about it as soon as you turn the machine off.

‘A Working Man’ (and other Statham movies) are just like that: a cathartic way to watch hordes of bad guys get killed, only with a slight seasoning of vague social commentary and the notion that Levon Cade or Adam Clay or whatever Statham is called this time has righteousness on his side. In David Ayer, he’s found the perfect partner to get the job done.

What is the plot of ‘A Working Man’?

Levon Cade (Jason Statham), an ex-Royal Marines commando, leads a peaceful life as a construction worker in Chicago. However, Levon is forced to use his old set of skills to find his boss’s teenaged daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas), who had been kidnapped by human traffickers, and soon uncovers a conspiracy of corruption and government agents’ involvement in human trafficking.

Who is in the cast of ‘A Working Man’?

• Jason Statham as Levon Cade
• David Harbour as Gunny Lefferty
• Michael Peña as Joe Garcia
• Jason Flemyng as Wolo Kolisnyk
• Arianna Rivas as Jenny Garcia

List of Movies Written or Directed by David Ayer:

• ‘U-571‘ (2000)
• ‘Training Day‘ (2001)
• ‘The Fast and the Furious‘ (2001)
• ‘Dark Blue‘ (2003)
• ‘S.W.A.T.‘ (2003)
• ‘Harsh Times‘ (2006)
• ‘Street Kings‘ (2008)
• ‘End of Watch‘ (2012)
• ‘Sabotage‘ (2014)
• ‘Fury‘ (2014)
• ‘Suicide Squad‘ (2016)
• ‘Bright‘ (2017)
• ‘The Tax Collector‘ (2020)
• ‘The Beekeeper‘ (2024)

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