'A Working Man' review: Jason Statham will clock in just to save a young woman

Warner Bros. Pictures

Finally, a movie for the underserved cinemagoers: the working men. That means that Jason Statham makes his annual/biannual return to the big screen, playing a dude being a guy with a totally real name. In the new action thriller A Working Man, he portrays Levon Cade, your average construction manager and ex-marine who signs up to be a one-man wrecking crew when Jenny (Arianna Rivas), a teenage daughter of the Garcia family who owns the construction company that Levon works for, is kidnapped by Russian human traffickers at a nightclub. Merab Ninidze (as Yuri), Maximilian Osinski (Dimi) and Jason Flemyng (Wolo) appear as bratva gangsters, Emmett J. Scanlan (Viper) and Eve Mauro (Artemis) as their underlings, while Isla Gie plays Levon's daughter Merry and David Harbour his friend Gunny Lefferty (more real names).

Nothing about the setup here is surprising as you get another highly skilled, indestructible American everyman standing up to stereotypical Russian goons (at least there's one powerful American who isn't willing to be Russia's puppet so that's something) while fisticuffs, "witty" one-liners and dead bodies come across your way at a steady rate. What's disappointing is that writers Sylvester Stallone and David Ayer, who also directs, do not find ways to make the predictable journey humorous or fun. Adapted from Chuck Dixon's novel 'Levon’s Trade', A Working Man's story is wholly uninspired, the dialogue is often terrible and the dynamics are as varied as the elevation is in the Netherlands. With this sort of gun-idolising white saviour storyline, you'd hope that you'd have a good time and the script's rotten politics would be your only gripe, but somehow Stallone and Ayer manage to underdeliver at every possible turn.

One of those crucial instances is the characterisation, which is rather woeful because no one in the film—whether that's Levon, Jenny or any of the foes—is particularly interesting or a compelling screen presence. That's a major issue since as a result, you don't care about their fates and you're just watching one plot point after another unfold until it's time to roll credits. As far as the acting goes, Statham at least shows up like a professional and performs his role on autopilot, but he's done this type of character better before. It's quite concerning for the cast in general that Gie is perhaps the film's most enthusiastic performer considering her screen time; Harbour's presence feels more like a friendly favour than anything else while Michael Peña (as Jenny's dad Joe) is going for the competitive prize given to an actor who feels most embarrassed to be in something and is just waiting for their money.

Ayer and his creative collaborators are mostly delivering mediocre-to-subpar work, which doesn't help to compensate for the hollow subject matter (human trafficking is only used as a prop here) and low levels of fun. Statham's chronic habit of not wanting to take hits and wanting to just appear as badass hurts the stunt choreography because the fighting and glass breaking doesn't have any weight behind them, and it's made worse by shoddy editing (by Fred Raskin) and sound design that actually tries to compensate for it but becomes simply annoying with its loud and obnoxious foley, booms and sound effects. When your action scenes don't mean anything, the quest for justice isn't thrilling and the characters are this corny, it's likely that your action thriller fails to meet the job requirements. Feel free to clock out before you're bored to tears.

Smileys: Nothing stands out

Frowneys: Screenplay, characterisation, sound design

He'll push and pull you down, Levon la vida loca.

1.5/5

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