MOVIES: A Working Man - Review: Predictable Action

A Working Man is a David Ayer-directed, Slyvester Stallone produced, Jason Statham-starring action movie and that alone should let you know what you’re getting into. Introducing us to ex-Royal Marine Levon Cade now living stateside; estranged from his daughter and working in a construction yard, he has the chance to get back into the thick of the action when his boss’s daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers. It’s very much a return to the field and it’s very much a script written by Slyvester Stallone with everything that entails; a man who has now gone onto support Trump and embrace Right Wing politics in Hollywood whole-heartedly – forgetting his origins as a “working man.”

Reteaming from The Beekeeper; last years’ John Wick riff that went so far off the rails it was almost hard not to admire its audacity, Ayer and Statham are back with a simpler effort. Its premise is simple – Cade is a construction worker who uses his military background to beat up some tough guys who come to threaten his men. Yet it ends with a shootout in a manor full of rich elites and a cigar-toting pervert getting what’s coming to him in perhaps the most fragrant “well, that escalated quickly” that you’ll ever see – Cade ending up in the middle of a mix of American bikers and Russian drug dealers all out for his blood and yet you never feel like they’re going to be in any kind of danger at all because that’s what Jason Statham does – cleans his way through bad guys like there is nothing there. This is the kind of movie where one of the bad guys says to Statham – “You ain’t a cop, you’re a working man,” and it’s delivered with the most gung-ho enthusiasm that you kind of expect from a film like this that expects you to stand up and applaud at the fact that it got the title in the movie.

The world has gone bad all-around Statham, and he plays the last good man there. His daughter’s grandparents who now have primary guardianship put on an extravagant show designed to provoke him into lashing out so that they can gain full custody of her when he comes to collect her. They’re aware of his anger; but he reigns it in – he doesn’t drink anymore. Until the guns come out – everyone around Cade has all fallen – cops are corrupt and there’s nowhere for anyone to turn to. You can’t trust the bartender. The paranoia never quite reaches Transporter 2 or Crank’s extremes – I would’ve liked it if the many revolving door of villains that we get here were cut in half so that we could get more development on the few that we do – the closest one who gets any kind of development is Chidi Ajufo’s Dutch, a former soldier in his own right. Michael Pena and David Harbour are given supporting roles – Pena as Cade’s boss, distraught father, Harbour as a ex-military man, now blind – but these are surface levels designed to serve Cade and give him “permission” that he doesn’t need – because you know it’s a Statham film so he’s going to go and kill all the bad guys anyway.

That said, the action is fun. It’s nothing of the levels of John Wick, or even The Beekeeper – in fact, it’s Ayer’s weakest effort since the critically lambasted Suicide Squad first go round back in 2016, which he still claims a better cut exists somewhere. There’s not much evidence of that existing – but the usage of music he’s kept around. A sheer riot of an action scene; and probably, the film’s best, takes place in the back of a bar set to The Dropkick Murphys The Boys Are Back. It’s not boundary pushing, it’s not brave, it’s safe to the core. But would you expect anything else?