With a Jason Statham-starring movie you know upfront what to expect. A Working Man is no different. In fact, I don’t know why they bother to give these movies titles. Just call it Jason Statham and put a number after that for all the inevitable sequels.
A Working Man seems set up to start a franchise for Statham in which he plays Levon Cade, a former Royal Guard soldier now working as a blue collar Chicago construction worker who is trying to be a good family man grieving the loss of his wife and attempting to get custody of their daughter, Merry (Isla Gie) whose grandfather is attempting to take away from Levon. This film is based on the book Levon’s Trade by Chuck Dixon who has 12 books in all, fashioned after the character. Director David Ayer teams again with Statham after last year’s successful violent actioner, The Beekeeper, and the screenplay comes from him and none other than Sylvester Stallone, who no doubt likes the Rambo-ish loner-style resemblance to Cade.
Storywise Cade is enlisted to help one of his co-workers, Joe Garcia (Michael Pena) and his wife Carla (Noemi Gonzalez) who are distraught after their scrappy daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) has been snatched by the Russian mob and sold into their sex trafficking operation. Levon must pose as a drug dealer and infiltrate himself into this Chicago underworld populated by numerous stereotypical Russian Mafia types led by crime lord Wolo Kolisnyk (Jason Flemyng), and featuring his loose cannon son Dimi (Maximilian Osinski).
Really, when it comes down to it. this movie represents the umpteenth ripoff of John Ford’s 1956 western classic, The Searchers, where John Wayne as loner Ethan rides the high country in search of teenaged Natalie Wood, daughter of his friends who has been kidnapped and taken in by Indians. “He had to find her…He had to find her” the ad line for the film read. That is at the core of what Levon is doing in A Working Man, and with his unique fighting skills honed in the military he gets plenty of opportunities to do in one adversary after another in search of Jenny. There is another ex-military named Dutch played to hilt as a baddie by Chidi Ajufo, and particularly grizzly and imposing are uber villains Viper (Emmett J. Scanlan and Artemis (Eve Mauro). A big help in serving as his quasi weapons supplier is blind war buddy Gunny Leffertz played by an unrecognizable David Harbour in a nice, if brief, change of pace.
All the Russians are familiar types any fan of these types of movies will instantly recognize. Not much depth here but plenty of reasons for Levon to execute his abilities in the bloodiest of ways. Statham is a natural successor to the likes of Stallone or Charles Bronson in these kinds of films that exist only to see just how violent they can get. Fortunately the actor is eminently watchable and, as I said, you know just exactly what you are going to get. Newcomer Rivas does well as Jenny, as does Harbour as Gunny. Pena is largely wasted here.
Ayer has made a bunch of films I really liked, particularly the cop drama End Of Watch which had a better role for Pena opposite Jake Gyllenhaal, and Brad Pitt’s WW2 tank epic, Fury. Here, as in Beekeeper, he delivers a tightly wound action showcase for his star and keeps it moving along.
Producers are Chris Long, Statham, John Friedberg, Ayer, Stallone, Bill Block, and Kevin King Templeton.
Title: A Working Man
Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios
Release Date: March 28, 2025
Director: David Ayer
Screenplay: David Ayer and Sylvester Stallone
Cast: Jason Statham, David Harbour, Michael Pena, Jason Flemyng, Merab Ninidze. Maximilian Osinski, Chidi Ajufo, Arianna Rivas, Isla Gie, Noemi Gonzalez, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro.
Rating: R
Running TIme: 1 hour and 56 minutes
