Directed By David Ayer

Starring – Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, David Harbour

The Plot – Levon Cade (Statham) has left his profession behind him to go ‘straight’ and work in construction. He wants to live a simple life and be a good father to his daughter (Isla Gie). But when his boss’s teenage daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) vanishes, he’s called upon to re-employ the skills that made him a legendary figure in the shadowy world of black ops. His hunt for the missing college student takes him deep into the heart of a sinister criminal conspiracy creating a chain reaction that will threaten his new way of life

Rated R for strong violence, adult language throughout, and drug content.

A Working Man | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

No actor has utilized long-term repetition quite as advantageously or entertainingly effective as Jason Statham, whose twenty-five year run in the action industry has made him one of the last action stars of the generation, and though “A Working Man” is another one for the proverbial pile, it’s still an exhilarating thrill ride that enacts the kind of comfort food that his legion of fans have enjoyed for three decades. It begins with the man in question still supplanting no shortage of radiant charisma and imposing stature to the legion of enemies that he comes across. Statham’s undeterred professionalism brings the same amount of unrelenting energy and exuberance to every role that he takes on, regardless of a film’s quality, and despite him knocking on the door of 58-years-old, still moves as fluidly and believably as he did in his breakthrough role in 2002’s “The Transporter”, with swiftly and stealthy cat-like reflexes that still make him the most captivating presence on any screen that he chooses to be a part of. Aside from more credible work from Statham, the movie is blessed by the experienced direction of David Ayer once again unlocking insight into the depths of another darkly depraved world within one of his films that really enriches the urgency and vulnerability of Jenny’s captivity, especially considering how many people and organizations are involved in the drug and sex trafficking that motivate these underworld crime lords. Ayer’s decision to maintain mostly seriousness in the execution of his direction does sacrifice certain appeals that I will discuss in just a second, however helps to materialize some of the most morally bankrupt adversaries that Statham has perhaps ever come across in a film, and it allows the threat before him to not only feel overwhelming from just the sheer magnitude of their organization, but also the unforgiving means to their actions that, like last year’s “The Beekeeper”, reflects a social issue in our own world, making it all the easier for audiences to invest in Levon’s onslaught in ways that allow them to harvest their own internalized anger to live vicariously through him as the bodies start to stack as quickly as the film’s twenty minute mark. As for the script, it’s certainly far from perfect, particularly in being co-written between Ayer and Sylvester Stallone, but the one thing it does a great job of is articulating the blue collar humanity that is Levon’s character, especially in those gently glowing moments between he and his daughter, which help to off-set the abundance of devastation that he casually and constantly inflicts to him feeling one-dimensional or stale. While the scenes between the two are limited among the nearly two hour run time, they do showcase Statham’s radiant range as a compassionate father figure, and the interactions between the two are undeniably charming, even if they’re only there to help enforce just why Levon is fighting so forcefully to save Jenny. But none of this would matter if the action scenes in the movie weren’t expressively meaningful to the kind of damage and devastation that we’ve come to expect from a Statham movie, and thankfully the choreography and engulfing sound design do a remarkable job of conveying the cracking and shattering of the human anatomy, as it comes into contact with both an unstoppable force and an immovable object. While the editing techniques are a bit abrasively intrusive to the claustrophobic camera confines involved during these physical confrontations, the audio enhancements offer the single biggest reason to seek the movie out in big screen surroundings, and though the documentation of them feels like it greatly improves before the big third act climax, they’re constantly enhanced by Statham continuously slashing the scenery in a variety of landscapes and set decoration that he cleverly and brutally instills into spontaneity of his think-fast execution.

NEGATIVES

The script feels like a good place to start when discussing the inferiorities within this film, particularly the increasingly convoluted structure of Levon’s road to finding Jenny that definitely doesn’t require anywhere near a 110-minute run time. While I can certainly understand that a Russian mob organization has literally thousands of people in its ranks, the film continues to unload them as late as 90 minutes into the movie, and after a while the consistency of their shuffling off makes each of them feel like plagued camp counselors coming across Jason Voorhees in the woods, and it keeps the film towards not only feeling repetitious, but also void of any kind of tension that truly made Levon feel like the underdog for any long-term pacing of the movie. Because a Statham film really only requires good action and Jason Statham, the need to spend so much time and development to the protagonist’s investigation draws it out to overstaying its welcome quite early on in the film, and while I appreciate a good story to go along with the devastation in any movie, it’s not exactly the reason that I seek out Statham movies, especially those dragging the road to vengeance out longer, only moments after dissipating what at least initially felt like the primary antagonist to this movie. Speaking of villains, the movie continues the Statham tradition of them lacking any kind of subtlety or dimensions to their respective outlines, made worse with hammy accents and brutally obvious dialogue that feels like they were borrowed from literally any movie involving the Russian mob over the last fifty years of cinema. While some of them certainly garner more memorable personality and bizarreness than others, we come no closer to learning absolutely anything about them, and the 10-20 of them that receive ample screen time essentially feel like temporary placeholders until they’re killed, and we can bring in the next one, leaving nobody even close to being as menacing or even charismatic as Statham, for him to bounce off of, which makes this a one-sided battle of wits with little adversity to his struggle, other than the abundance of their organizational magnitude. As for the aforementioned tone and direction that Ayer supplants to the engagement, the problematic side of such pertains to a complete lack of fun and over-the-top execution that made “The Beekeeper” such a surprising success, particularly in it being entirely self-aware to the kind of low-brow thrills that it was crafting for its audience. Here, the tone of the film is taking itself far too seriously for some of the silly and surreal details that Levon is orchestrating, made worse by the continuous stupidity and sloppiness of the aforementioned antagonists, and though it doesn’t rob the movie completely of any appeal, I’ve always found my mileage on Statham films follows in favor of the ones that choose to elicit an elasticity to its established tone, ultimately keeping this film from some of the best Statham vehicles of our time. Finally, while this is a Statham vehicle first and foremost, the appeal of casting notorious co-stars like David Harbour and Michael Pena offered the possibility that Jason wouldn’t have to do as much heavy lifting as he often does, however both of them are tragically wasted in forgettable roles that keep either of them from showing the distinguished personalities that they’ve made storied careers off of. Pena is somewhat forgivable as Jenny’s worried father, though the script never cuts back to him the whole time she’s away, but Harbour’s Gunny, a blind Green Beret alongside Statham, provides the only offering assistance to Levon, but he’s often relegated to these nothing scenes involving reflective dialogue that were all so obviously shot in one day, all the while utilizing David with a role that quite literally anyone could play, so why not one of the most familiar faces currently in the industry?

OVERALL
“A Working Man” feels like it was made on the conveyor belt of a Jason Statham produced factory, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining or enthralling than we’ve come to expect from the charismatically resilient actor. Though the film is plagued by questionable execution involving a strictly serious tone and a convoluted exploration, Statham is still the tie that ultimately binds the familiarity in these interchangeable outlines, providing another grippingly resilient force of nature in a film that is all work and no play.

My Grade: 6.4 or C