Review: A Working Man (2025)

Source

In last year’s fun, if deeply stupid, The Beekeeper, Jason Statham reminded audiences how much they enjoy watching him mutter in a Cockney accent as he metes out righteous violence on deserving criminals. It was inevitable that the filmmakers would go back to the well again. Re-teaming Statham with writer-director David Ayer, A Working Man is less bonkers and more sentimental than last year’s film. Statham plays a construction foreman in A Working Man, he was a beekeeper last year, and in the past he has starred in The Mechanic, and as a driver in The Transporter films. If only this had meant that we got a series of related films where Statham kicks ass in various blue collar professional guises, befitting his working-class Cockney background. Unfortunately, beyond the title,  A Working Man doesn’t do much to connect to this possibility of job title action movies, rather it’s simply a hyper-violent, revenge fantasy from Ayer, who is transitioning from making movies for angry young men (the first The Fast and the Furious film, Harsh Times, and the worse Suicide Squad film) to making “Dad movies” that seem destined to become basic cable staples (if such a thing still exists). A Working Man satisfies the requirements of the genre, while being slightly self-serious and feeling overly-long at a mere hour and fifty-six minutes.

I went into A Working Man with little more background knowledge than that it re-teamed Statham with Ayer, so I was a bit surprised to discover that the film exchanges The Beekeeper’s co-writing credit (Kurt Wimmer, from Equilibrium and Ultraviolet) for Sylvester Stallone. Stallone, who it is worth remembering has long been a screenwriter since the first Rocky, here is working from a novel, Levon’s Trade, by Batman comic legend Chuck Dixon. After watching the film, Stallone’s influence is definitely obvious and really shapes the film’s structure and preoccupations. While both this film and The Beekeeper are violent revenge films with elaborate action scenes, you could see A Working Man being originally developed as a late-era Stallone film, with Stallone’s interests in men from hard-scrabble backgrounds and fighting against long odds.

The film follows Statham as Levon Cade, a former British Royal Marine now working as a widowed construction foreman in Chicago fighting for custody of his young daughter who lives with her grandfather. When Jenny (Arianna Rivas), the 19-year old daughter of the owner of the construction firm he works for (a thankless performance by Michael Peña), is abducted by human traffickers on a night out on the town, Levon vows to track them down, fulfilling the promise he made to Jenny to “always have her back.” This leads him on a convoluted private investigation involving meth dealers, corrupt cops, and ultimately, the Russian mafia. Plenty of bloody revenge ensues.

Perhaps the most succinct way to describe A Working Man is that it is Death Wish meets John Wick. Of all classic movie stars, I would say that Statham has more than a passing similarity to Charles Bronson, and not just because Statham’s The Mechanic (2011) is a remake of Bronson’s 1972 film of the same name. Each brings a non-American flavour to solidly American revenge films, Bronson being a Lithuanian immigrant, and Statham a solid Cockney East Londoner. On film, both actors nonetheless frequently embody a notion of Americans as hard-working, chiselled, and no-nonsense people. Like Death Wish, or more recently, Liam Neeson’s Taken, series, A Working Man draws on the trope of human trafficking and the threat of sexual violence upon innocent women to justify the most vicious and brutal response from its protagonist. Even if its heightened portrayal isn’t really rooted in a strict realism (in reality, most victims of human trafficking are neither middle class nor randomly selected) the visceral horror and strong moral revulsion broadly held to the scenario shared allows the audience to root for the villains’ comeuppance without much moral complication.

A Working Man also relies on the trope of the former soldier who has trouble reintegrating into real life. Here the Stallone influence, particularly that of his First Blood films, is most clear. Levon wonders if his own violent past drove his wife to depression and suicide; his father-in-law certainly thinks so. But his skills are necessary to save Jenny, and to prove to himself that he still has something to offer beyond blue collar work. His blind, former military friend, a former American marine named Gunny (David Harbour), provides a kind of surrogate family for him, watching his daughter while he hunts the Russian mobsters who have kidnapped Jenny. A Working Man offers some thematic interest in the way it dramatizes how past imperial wars bring the conflict home. For example, in one earlier scene, Levon waterboards the bartender/drug dealer who tipped off the Russians about Jenny’s presence in his bar to get information.

This is where the John Wick vibes are strongest in the film. Everything to do with the Russian mafia in the film stretches the film beyond its relatively grounded beginning, into the realm of fantasy. It turns out Jenny has been selected by the rogue son of a mafia boss, Dimi (Maxillian Osinski), and sold to a creepy client, Mr. Broward (Kenneth Collard), who inexplicably dresses like the Penguin, complete with cigarette holder and umbrella. The Russians themselves are caricatures, becoming more and more outlandish in their costuming and depraved behaviour (even stranger is Levon’s father-in-law’s predilection for adult clown parties and dressing up i clown get-up). As the film progresses, we go from Jason Flemyng's relatively grounded portrayal of a Russian mob boss to a full-on costume ball straight out of John Wick, with outrageous weapons and theatrical settings and set pieces. The final fight to rescue Jenny in a remote mansion takes place under a fantastically large full moon, as the Russians participate in some kind of Eyes Wide Shut party. It’s certainly entertaining when Statham dismantles hordes of bikers and gangsters in the final show stopper, but at that point the film leaves behind any pretense to be rooted in reality.

A Working Man ends up being more of a mixed bag than The Beekeeper, with the previous film’s outrageous premise working better hand-in-hand with the idea of first confronting internet scammers who prey on the elderly, which then reveals a conspiracy that goes straight to the White House. Here, Ayer wants the film to be more grounded, rooting its revenge story in personal justifications for the violence and an ostensibly realistic motivation of working for family and friends. But, as the later scenes confirm, it is still a fantasy, and the characterization of the villains certainly makes that much clear.

As a revenge fantasy actioner, A Working Man is solid and offers most of what popcorn action viewers, such as myself, are interested in. Statham’s screen presence and a few decent action scenes. But on the whole, it’s still fairly half-baked and goofy, despite the strains towards legitimate dramatic presentation.

4 out of 10

Directed by David Ayer; screenplay by Sylvester Stallone and David Ayer; starring Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Maximilian Osinksi, Michael Peña, David Harbour, Arianna Rivas, Kenneth Collard.

related posts