Latest news with #LevonCade
Express Tribune
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Jason Statham's A Working Man set to dethrone Snow White at box office
Jason Statham's latest action film, A Working Man, is set to debut at No. 1 at the box office, surpassing Disney's live-action Snow White. Directed by David Ayer and co-starring David Harbour and Michael Peña, the film opened with $5.6 million on its first day, including $1.1 million from Thursday previews. Industry projections estimate it will earn around $15 million in its opening weekend. The movie, based on Chuck Dixon's Levon Cade series and written by Sylvester Stallone and Ayer, follows a former commando turned construction worker (Statham) who is drawn into a high-stakes conspiracy while searching for his boss's kidnapped daughter. Ayer has hinted that the film could lead to a new franchise, as there are 12 books in the series. Meanwhile, Disney's Snow White, starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, is seeing a significant decline. Initially expected to bring in $20 million in its second weekend, it's now projected to earn only $14 million. The film has surpassed $100 million globally but is struggling to recoup its $250 million budget. With A Working Man's stronger audience reception (90% Rotten Tomatoes score) and Snow White's poor critical performance (41%), Statham's action thriller is set to claim the top spot at the box office. Both films are now playing in theaters.
The Guardian
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From A Working Man to Lucy Dacus: a complete guide to this week's entertainment
A Working ManOut now Name? Levon Cade. Profession? A simple construction worker. Former profession? Black ops military. The actor? Jason Statham, of course. He reunites here with the director of The Beekeeper for another instalment in their partnership apparently dedicated to Statham playing guys being pulled out of retirement for one final action-packed job. La CocinaOut now Based on the 1957 stage play The Kitchen by Arnold Wesker and written and directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, this new version reimagines the kitchen in question as that belonging to a Times Square tourist trap restaurant where white waitresses take orders for a staff of mostly undocumented migrants. NovocaineOut now Our hero is a bank executive – stick with us – with the inability to feel pain, in this high-concept action thriller starring Jack Quaid as a guy who must rescue his dream girl (Amber Midthunder) from nefarious bank robbers. From film-making duo Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. Misericordia Out now French director Alain Guiraudie (Stranger By the Lake) returns with the story of a man heading back to his home town for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker. Comic thriller which premiered at Cannes last year and bagged eight nominations at the Césars, the French equivalent of the Oscars. Catherine Bray Trilok Gurtu/Scottish National Jazz OrchestraPerth, 29 March; Edinburgh, 30 March Gurtu is the revered percussion pioneer who began adapting Indian tabla traditions to western drumkits in the 1970s and has played with jazz stars including Don Cherry, John McLaughlin and Joe Zawinul. He explores his rich, global-music history with the formidable Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and the arrangements of genre-hopping German composer Wolf Kerschek. John Fordham Brooke Combe3 to 19 April; tour starts Liverpool Released in January, Dancing at the Edge of the World, the debut album from Scotland's Brooke Combe, showcased a brand new British soul talent. Expect that huge potential to blossom further on this tour, which climaxes with a homecoming show at Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom. Michael Cragg UsherThe O2, London, 29 March to 7 May The Stone Kold Freak hitmaker brings his Past Present Future tour to London for a 10-date residency at the O2 arena. During the tour's US leg Usher sang and danced his way through 47 songs each night, including Yeah!, OMG and You Make Me Wanna …, so please pace yourselves. MC Total Immersion: Pierre BoulezBarbican Hall, London, 30 March The BBC Symphony Orchestra pay a centenary tribute to the composer who was their chief conductor from 1971 to 1975. The day of films, discussions and concerts ends with a rare performance of Pli Selon Pli, Boulez's masterpiece set to the sonnets of French poet Stéphane Mallarmé. Andrew Clements UnderseaHastings Contemporary, 29 March to 14 September Under the sea, nothing looks the same. Artists can dream of coral caves, monster fish and shipwrecks, in a blue-lit realm of the fabulous. The earliest art in this subaquatic survey depicts a half-mythic world of 18th-century natural history. Paul Delvaux sees the sea surrealistically and Michael Armitage mystically. José María VelascoNational Gallery, London, 29 March to 17 August A 19th-century landscape artist gets a show at the National Gallery – nothing unusual about that, except the vistas here are sunbaked Mexican valleys where bright green cacti tower. Velasco's paintings of nature and industry in 1800s Mexico make a contrast with the temperate European views in the NG collection. Ian Hamilton FinlayModern Two, Edinburgh, to 26 May The poet and conceptual artist whose garden, Little Sparta, is his most famous creation, combined provocative images of modern history with a reverence for the classical world. This homage for his 100th birthday brings together many of his statements and objects in an encounter with one of Scotland's spikiest greats. Giuseppe PenoneSerpentine South Gallery, London, 3 April to 7 September This artist born in 1947 has lived to see his vision of nature as an enduring alternative to the industrial world feel more timely than ever. Penone carved out his aesthetic of found wood as a member of the Arte Povera movement in the 1960s. He's still true to it. Jonathan Jones Candoco: Over and Over (and Over Again)DanceEast, Ipswich, 4 April A new piece from Candoco, a company made up of both disabled and non-disabled dancers, working with choreographer Dan Daw. It's inspired by rave culture and the search for utopia, with a soundtrack of acid house, techno, grime and more. The performers dance out their histories in a search for freedom. Lyndsey Winship John Tothill3 to 22 April; tour starts Bristol The standup scene is rather light on Wildean aesthetes at present, making ex-teacher Tothill an even more welcome presence. Gilding mundanity with erudite exuberance, the comic's current show even manages to bring an air of decadence to the tale of the grim medical trial that helped fund his most recent Edinburgh run. Rachel Aroesti ManhuntRoyal Court, London, to 3 May Robert Icke's blazing production of Oedipus, starring Mark Strong, is heading to Broadway later this year. In London, his latest show, as both writer and director, excavates the story of fugitive Raoul Moat. Starring Samuel Edward-Cook (from Icke's The Player Kings), it revisits the biggest manhunt in UK history. Kate Wyver Derren Brown: Only HumanSwan Theatre, High Wycombe, 4 & 5 April; then touring The masterly mentalist and illusionist kicks off his new tour this week. He has dazzled and dazed audiences on TV for decades, but there is really nothing like watching him live on stage. Details are strictly under wraps, but the mystery only adds to the anticipation. KW Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion MobLandParamount+, 30 March Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren play an underworld power couple who employ a brutal fixer (Tom Hardy) in this new series from Ronan Bennett, who swaps the gritty, nuanced thrills of Top Boy for a Guy Ritchie-backed madcap crime caper with all the subtlety of a nightmarishly deployed sledgehammer. The BondsmanPrime Video, 3 April Fred is back from the dead with one enormous caveat in the debut TV series from indie horror movie masters Blumhouse (Paranormal Activity, Insidious). Kevin Bacon stars as a bounty hunter who is returned to Earth and given the unenviable task of executing escaped demons by the devil himself. Dying for SexDisney+, 4 April In 2020, TV host Nikki Boyer released a podcast made with her late friend Molly, whose stage IV cancer diagnosis sparked a series of sexual escapades. Now New Girl creator Elizabeth Meriwether has adapted it into a life-affirming comedy-drama, with Michelle Williams as Molly and Jenny Slate playing Boyer. AustiniPlayer/BBC One, 4 April, 9.30pm Some big British names (Ben Miller, Sally Phillips) lead this Australian comedy about Julian, a children's author who accidentally retweets a white supremacist on the eve of a book tour down under. Could the autistic man claiming to be his biological son end up saving his ailing career? RA AtomfallOut now; PS4/5, Xbox, PC After a nuclear disaster in the Lake District, you must survive in an irradiated world that's been overtaken by mechs and fascists. This action RPG takes inspiration from the likes of Fallout and classic British sci-fi. Post TraumaOut 31 March; PS5, Xbox, PC The retro survival-horror revival continues with this Spanish game about a middle-aged train conductor stuck in a nightmare world. With its obscure puzzles, ominous atmosphere and discomfiting slowness, it's a more cerebral horror experience than the raft of zombie shooters out there. Keza MacDonald Lucy Dacus – Forever Is a Feeling Out now Dacus returns from her sabbatical as one-third of Boygenius – alongside Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker – with this fourth solo album. Limerence is a smokey piano number full of deft lyrical observations, while the hot and heavy Ankles is a gorgeous slice of indie-pop. Jessie Reyez – Paid in Memories Out now On Psilocybin & Daisies, a messed-up love song built round a sped-up sample of 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins, Canada's Jessie Reyez outlines her relationship goals. On the soulful Goliath, meanwhile, she promises to fight anyone for the one she loves, anchoring an album full of big, OTT emotions. Mumford & Sons – Rushmere Out now After ditching the waistcoats, silly hats and banjoist Winston Marshall, Mumford & Sons return with their fifth album. They haven't lost the scale, though, with Malibu ballooning into a big folk-rock stomper, while the Greg Kurstin-assisted title track should go down well at a festival around sunset. Perfume Genius – Glory Out now Mike Hadreas, AKA Perfume Genius, returns with his seventh album, 11 songs that veer from the gothic Americana of lead single It's a Mirror to the desolate piano balladry of Dion. No Front Teeth, meanwhile, features haunted backing from Aldous Harding. MC The Final Days of Sgt TibbsPodcast A missing cat might not sound like the most riveting premise for an audio series but this documentary follows the increasingly dramatic story of Sgt Tibbs, whose disappearance starts a mighty neighbourhood feud. The CourtauldYouTube London's Courtauld Gallery hosts a fantastic archive of its art history lecture series, including expert commentary on everything from Vietnamese modernism to queer histories of photography and the modern role of art conservation. The Covid Generation RevisitedBBC World Service, 29 March, 12.06pm Five years on from the beginnings of the UK lockdown, this fascinating documentary interviews graduates from the class of 2020 to see how the pandemic affected their prospects for both better and worse. Ammar Kalia
Los Angeles Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In ‘A Working Man,' Jason Statham's tools are hammers, guns and fists
'A Working Man' opens with a batty pastiche of bullets and buzz saws, parachutes and cranes. A soldier's corpse rests under an American flag. A cement mixer trundles toward a construction site. There's something modestly affecting (and complicated) about the career arc of a contractor named Levon Cade (Jason Statham) who once blew up buildings and now erects them, although as a Veterans Day commercial for a hardware store, the montage would be slightly over the top. Director David Ayer is trying to weld a connection between last year's surprise delight 'The Beekeeper,' in which Statham played an assassin turned hive master, and this one, in which he plays an ex-soldier who's handy with a hammer. Of these two thrillers, honey turns out to be funnier than hard hats. 'A Working Man' strikes an unsteady balance between solemn and ridiculous. The set-up is that sex traffickers have taken the 19-year-old daughter of Levon's bosses Joe and Carla (Michael Peña and Noemi Gonzalez). Statham stays straight-faced through Levon's bloody quest to get her back, even at it takes him to places that make 'pizzagate' look reasonable: a nightclub with fire jugglers, a backwoods speakeasy gilded like 'The Great Gatsby' and a biker bar decorated by hundreds of human skulls and a throne fused from chrome tailpipes. The production and costume designers are having a blast. Even an outdoor scene is lit by a moon so large and low, Levon could drive a tank through it. Maybe they're saving his space adventures for a sequel. Levon meets and murders a wacky goon squad that sports everything from vampire chic to chain-metal capelets. Besides one brawl inside a speeding van, the actual fights aren't that interesting; we're mostly enjoying the clothes. 'I am the big potatoes,' one creep (Maximilian Osinski) preens in a lace cowboy hat and ruffled sleeves. We're somewhere in Illinois but he looks like he just escaped an asylum in Versailles. No one in the film comments on any of the frippery. Ayer is simply bedazzling a script that would otherwise feel rudimentary had it starred Liam Neeson in a gray T-shirt. In the movie's source material, the 2014 novel 'Levon's Trade' (the first of Chuck Dixon's 12 testosterone-drenched Levon Cade books), the weirdest outfit belongs to a brute wearing 'the last Members Only jacket on Earth.' At its foundation, the movie is a hoary cliché with quirk spackled on it. The construction-worker conceit is dropped faster than a stack of bricks. There's a fight right up at the top where Levon swings a bucket of nails into a gangster's face, and after that, his character defaults to his special-ops training: He can't wait to get to waterboarding. Levon drowns one goon, then another and two more. Too bad the title 'Aquaman' was already taken. The project dates back to before the buzz about the bees. Sylvester Stallone previously tried adapting Dixon's paperback franchise for TV and is credited as a co-writer alongside Ayer. I appreciate the tweaks they've made to the book. (Letting female characters talk, for one.) Ayers made his bones with the streetwise LAPD drama 'Training Day,' winning Denzel Washington a lead actor Oscar, and he refuses to take the vigilante genre seriously. Rather, he takes this kind of fear-mongering Fox News dreck as seriously as it deserves — as silly fiction. 'A Working Man' molds the Levon character to Statham, making him a British soldier and tilting the book's axis of evil away from ' 'Merica good, everyone else bad.' After 22 years of service doing secret, ghastly things — he keeps his military actions classified — Levon is now in Chicago with PTSD (a condition that gets mentioned once), a dead American wife and a grade-school kid who the courts have decided should live with Levon's rich father-in-law, Dr. Roth (Richard Heap). Although he's supposed to be a stuffy neurosurgeon, Dr. Roth wears furry bucket hats and yoga pants. Perhaps the script meant to write 'Dennis Rodman.' The self-serious first stretch of the film drags as it establishes that Levon is a righteous dude who sleeps in his pick-up truck to save cash for his custody battle. It's a shame the muscle man isn't invited to carry his share of the comedy. It's also unnecessary. Anyone who likes this kind of pulp knows these avenging angel characters are more or less the same: intense, taciturn, minimalist. If Levon has a tick, it's his impatience to get on with the murdering. He offs bad guys with comically little fuss, sometimes before he gets much information out of them. His key strategy seems to be using dead bodies as duck decoys, hunting whoever cares about his latest corpse. As his best pal Gunny (David Harbour) says, 'You killed your way into this — you'll have to kill your way out.' I dug Arianna Rivas' Jenny, the kidnapped coed who plays an active role in her own rescue. Jenny's hobbies include spreadsheets, karate and piano. (She plays 'Moonlight Sonata' so often that composer Jared Michael Fry works it into the score.) Jenny also claims to know how to break fingers, although we never see that party trick. Though the character strains credulity, Rivas plays her with aplomb. The build-up to her abduction is oddly adorable: Jenny and her college girlfriends go out dressed in a group costume of skirt-suits and pearls — they're cosplaying as political wives? — and then do cheerleading routines on a dance floor. Frivolous as it is, these inventive details convince us that Ayer isn't simply phoning it in. The bad guys are cannon fodder, though I did like the way one mobster sadly sighs at a grenade before he explodes. Kudos to the casting team for hiring actors with interesting faces — Max Croes, Cokey Falkow and Andrej Kaminsky are now engraved in my memory — and I couldn't help developing a soft spot for Chidi Ajufo's Dutch, a fellow veteran whose memorable bits of business include drinking from a comically small teacup and feeding us the movie's title: 'You're not a cop, you're a working man.' Dutch also merits the film's second-most poignant exit. The most emotional goes to a gun that's given a full military salute. Ayer knows what his audience wants and he's willing to give it to them. He's a working man, too, but at least his product is custom-crafted.
