A Working Man certainly requires a lot of work to sit through. Following an ex-black ops agent turned construction worker searching for his boss's kidnapped daughter; director David Ayer reunites with Jason Statham after last year's actioner, The Beekeeper. The Beekeeper had the virtue of not taking itself too seriously as a retired assassin turned beekeeper went one-man-army on a group of phishing scammers. Take out the one-liners and the goofy tone and replace corrupt CEOs with Russian traffickers, and you have A Working Man - a self-serious convoluted slog that acts like a “spiritual” (pun intended) sequel to Sound of Freedom.
Co-written by Ayer and Sylvester Stallone and based on the book Levon's Trade: Statham plays Levon Cade, a former Royal Marine Commando who has, like many a Statham anti-hero, 'left his past behind him'. Now a foreman working for Chicago-based family man Joe Garcia (Michael Peña), he enjoys the quiet life and spending time with both Joe's daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) and his own child Merry (Isla Gie). Merry's mother died, and Levon is in a custody battle with her grandfather, a man who believes violence always follows the ex-soldier. He's not necessarily wrong.
Jenny goes out clubbing with friends and is drugged and kidnapped by members of the Bratva, a Russian mafia led by Symon Kharchenko (Andrej Kaminsky). When Joe finds out, he turns to his battle-ready buddy to rescue her. Ayer, copying his own homework from The Beekeeper, has Levon initially refusing by repeating that 'he's no longer that man'. As expected, the hard hat comes off within a heartbeat, the boots tighten, and the sledgehammers start swinging. In true Statham blunt-force fashion, the solution to all these problems is to kill everyone.
Levon's winding path brings him in contact with old friend Gunny (David Harbour), an ally blinded during his time as a soldier. Once he helps Levon get geared up, the film jumps across multiple locations as he attempts to track down Jenny. Fake drug deals with an associated biker gang. Chicago night spots where billionaires treat women as sex slaves. Shadowy lairs where the Russian traffickers decide their next shady scheme - all backdrops so Levon can punch, stab, and shoot his way to redemption. Meanwhile, Jenny, incarcerated by a client, doesn't take her abduction lightly, biting the cheek off her captor in defiance and putting herself in further danger.
It's been a long time since Stallone wrote Rocky and its follow-ups. Condemnation is now more common for Sly than accolades. His screenplay for A Working Man barely breaks the tired action cliches that might have worked for the relatively self-aware Expendables franchise in places but doesn't shine when he tries to bring it down a notch - especially writing less over-the-top fare. This latest effort is more in line with 2013's fizzler Homefront, also starring Statham as a retired elite agent dragged back into the world of crime (how Jason Statham must relish the chance to punch a CGI shark in The Meg).
A Working Man’s narrative is bloated, inflexible, and without dramatic flair. The dialogue feels flat and without any spunk or character; and the message about human trafficking is as dodgy as the Proverbs 1:11 shirt Statham puts on toward the film's end. It's an ill-paced fetch quest where Levon's investigation is solved not with a magnifying glass but with brawn, ordnance and over-importance. The most enticing aspect is Jenny's subplot, a not-entirely-damsel whose sparse scenes, if padded out, would have made for a much more interesting film.
Jason Statham plays “Standard Statham”, grunting, smirking, and fighting toward a cliched goal. There's very little to care about in Levon's character as he's whisked away from the construction site and his family too early. David Harbour is a strong scene partner, but he is a narrative afterthought rather than a character. Most of the goons are one-dimensional meat fodder: Jenny's captors, Viper (Emmett J. Scanlan) and Artemis (Eve Mauro), are particularly insufferable as a pair of anxious criminals who don't know what they're doing. There's nothing charismatic about any of the players.
There's an inevitable exhaustion to the checklist style demise of each antagonist: a symptom of an actioner that lacks intrigue, momentum, or personality. Shawn White's cinematography is basic shaky cam and dimly lit rooms that fail to propel the action. The final act offers a sprinkle of fun and creative violence - a crescendo of blood and splatter that arrives too late after a chorus of mundanity. A follow-up is blatantly teased, but clocking out now wouldn’t be David Ayer’s worst idea; not that the director is widely known for good ideas.
A Working Man is a generic actioner for those wanting to see Jason Statham do the same schtick. With a misguided rallying cry for the working class, a questionably constructed conspiracy about human trafficking, and an asinine script from Ayer and Stallone: those wanting a bit of fun and interest behind their ceaseless action will probably leave feeling they've just sat through tedious shift work.
Director: David Ayer
Cast: Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Michael Peña
Writers: Sylvester Stallone, David Ayer, (based on the book Levon's Trade by Chuck Dixon)
Producers: David Ayer, Bill Block, John Friedberg, Chris Long, Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Kevin King Templeton
Music: Jared Michael Fry
Cinematography: Shawn White
Editor: Fred Raskin
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