A Working Man review – Jason Statham actioner is far too much work
The new Jason Statham movie is based on a novel called Levon's Trade, which is a pretty good title. But A Working Man is a better Jason Statham title, because who's better, or at least more reliable, at punching in for duty at the genre factory than Stath? Pushing 60, he's still throwing those punches, sometimes aided by Jackie Chan-like props, and increasingly aided by those old-guy action-movie crutches of firearms and grenades.
A Working Man is Statham's insta-follow-up to his biggest hit in years, 2024's January-movie ideal The Beekeeper; it's not a sequel, but it's also directed by David Ayer, extending his break from cops and gangs to send Statham off to combat some more broadly agreed-upon social ills with vaguely QAnon undertones. Last time, Statham fought back against phone scammers and a conspiracy that led all the way to, well, you know; this time, he's taking on sex trafficking. He's narrowed his focus, though: There's one particular act of sex trafficking that really gets his goat. The bad guys have the ill fortune to target Jenny Garcia (Arianna Rivas), the college-aged daughter of Joe (Michael Peña), owner of the construction outfit where Levon Cade (Statham) makes his no-fuss living. Levon is saving up for a lawyer to fight for better custody of his own young daughter, so when Jenny is kidnapped from a bar outing, he reluctantly agrees to dust off the Royal Marine skills that never really went anywhere and track her down. (Joe also offers him a huge sum of cash, a potential boon for his custody battle with his dead wife's supercilious father.)
The movie's steady supply of working-class posturing is a bit much, even for the genuinely and charmingly rough-hewn Statham. Some of the muchness presumably comes courtesy of Sylvester Stallone, who shares screenwriting credit with Ayer. The result is an unexpected three-way tug of war, gentle but unmistakable, between their three compatible yet distinct sensibilities. There are glimmers of classic Statham action scenes, as when thugs harass employees at a Garcia worksite and Levon takes matters (as well as a bunch of constructional materials) into his own hands. There's crusty Stallone-style camaraderie in Levon's friendship with his blind compatriot Gunny (David Harbour, hammy as ever) and his instant chemistry with a tangentially involved gang leader. Two more of the over-many bad guys, meanwhile, feel like they're wandering in from a bad Ayer remake of The Crow. The movie shifts visual tones and textures from scene to scene, sometimes digital-clear and sometimes 2000s-style grainy, which is both novel and more than a little jarring.
Where Stallone and Ayer seem to agree is that Statham torturing and mowing down bad guys is as exciting as him fighting a bunch of henchmen (untrue!) and Jenny especially doesn't deserve to be sex-trafficked because she's so tough and self-reliant. (In fact, she often seems more annoyed than truly afraid for her life.) The movie also indulges some weird intimations that Joe, while obviously fitting the 'model minority' stereotype to a T, is too soft and weak to truly protect his family, and must outsource the job to unpretentious working-class Levon, who lives a spartan life in his truck before he acquiesces to the lawyer-suggested need for a residence and upgrades to a flophouse. Joe may technically be a widower, but the movie's divorce-dad energy is off the charts.
At its best, a movie like A Working Man functions as an update to the hard-boiled detective story, with a resilient bruiser conducting his own off-books missing-person investigation. There's a little of that juice as Levon does some amateur undercover work as a drug buyer, cozying up to a motorcycle gang (the aforementioned leader sits on a chrome throne, another touch that feels like Ayer's doing). But Stallone and Ayer don't have the patience for too much skullduggery; skullsmashery is more their thing, and as an action movie, A Working Man doesn't reach the giddy highs of Statham's best. It spends too much time futzing with its star's righteous bona fides, and while Statham looks great for his age, his fight sequences become increasingly methodical as the movie goes on, making little use of his trademark athleticism. Some of the movie's cartoon mayhem is fun enough. The rest feels like, well, work.
A Working Man is out in US and UK cinemas on 28 March
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