A Working Man is the most Jason Statham movie imaginable, but in following the formula so closely, the film fails to develop its own identity, or every fully spark into life.
Since having a hit with The Transporter two decades ago, Jason Statham has been making pretty much the same movie over-and-over again, playing strong, silent types with a keen moral compass, who do their talking with their fists.
Film like The Mechanic, Safe, Parker, Hummingbird, Homefront, Wild Card, and The Transporters 2 and 3 are pretty much interchangeable, but there’s an audience for the product, so Stath keeps making them.
Write-director David Ayer stuck to that formula with The Beekeeper in 2024, and the result was Statham’s biggest hit in years, grossing more than $160 million from a $40 million budget. So it’s no surprise that they have quickly re-teamed for A Working Man, though while the film ticks all the requisite boxes, it’s a strangely lifeless affair.
What is A Working Man about?
Statham plays the ‘Working Man’ in question, a former Royal Marine and current construction worker called Levon Cade, who toils away on a building site in Chicago.
He’s a stand-up guy, giving inspiring speeches to his fellow builders, and beating up the local gangsters harassing one of his team. But his personal life is a mess, with Cade sleeping in his car, and butting heads with his father-in-law, who believes Levon has untreated PTSD, and therefore wants to limit the time he’s allowed to spend with his granddaughter.
An opportunity to earn big bank arises when his boss’s daughter Jenny is kidnapped, as with the police apparently not investigating those kinds of crimes, said boss turns to Cade. Who initially turns him down, because “that’s not who I am anymore.” And also because a film like this demands that the hero initially refuses the call to battle.
But a brief chat with old war buddy Gunny (David Harbour) changes Cade’s mind, meaning the hunt is on, with Levon prepared to do whatever it takes to rescue the girl.
The twisted joy of these stories is seeing a seemingly good guy kill defiantly bad dudes. But Working Man takes a different route initially, with Cade torturing his prey, waterboarding his first target, and suspending the next over yet more water with threats of drowning. Which is less fun.
As for the villains in question, they’re Russian mobsters who call themselves ‘The Brotherhood,’ and who have a reputation for not just killing, but wiping out entire bloodlines. Making them a tough nut to crack.
To infiltrate their operation, Cade goes undercover as a drug dealer, and quickly rises through the ranks by buying big bags of crystal meth.
The plan works, and it soon becomes clear that Jenny has been the victim of sex trafficking. Though weirdly whenever the film cuts to her, she seems pretty chill about her ordeal, as if she knows she’s in a Jason Statham movie.
To be fair, she’s right to maintain that belief, as while the first half of the movie is about the hunt, the second half concerns the kill, with Levon Cade taking no prisoners on his hyper-violent rescue mission.
A movie in need of a final boss
But it all feels a bit lifeless, like everyone involved is going through the motions. A Working Man is based on Chuck Dixon’s 2014 novel ‘Levon’s Trade,’ and the script – by Ayer and Sylvester Stallone – feels quite repetitive, taking Cade from a couple of bars to a nightclub and then a party, via locations that are visually dull, and shot in uninspiring fashion.
The lack of a prime villain is also an issue. There’s Dimi, Yuri, Wolo, Johnny, Dougie, Viper, and Artemis, all of whom are very bad people. But they couldn’t be less memorable, with A Working Man desperately in need of a proper final boss to end proceedings with a bang.
The action is also perfunctory at best, with quick cuts and close-quarters shots meaning it’s frequently hard to make out what’s going on during the fights. And while he does kill a lot of bad guys and girls, I’m pretty sure that by tossing his unwanted meth into a river, Levon Cade kills more fish than people in A Working Man.
But Statham is as dependable as ever, delivering gravel-voiced threats as only he can, and remaining a sympathetic killer through his love for his daughter. Though by the end of the movie, I think I was on his father-in-law’s side in thinking that the safest place for that girl is far away from Levon.
Is A Working Man good?
A Working Man does what it’s supposed to do, setting Jason Statham up as a good man with a violent past, and sending him on a mission where he can kill pretty much anyone he likes, and the audience remains on his side.
But while the film succeeds on that front, it’s hard to care about what’s happening. Maybe because searching for your boss’s kid isn’t the most compelling trigger, especially when the sub-plot concerning his own daughter is right there for the taking.
And if said trigger isn’t interesting, the villains need to make up for that deficiency, but they very much don’t, being a group of poorly sketched baddies who fail to make any impression.
A Working Man review score: 2/5 – Poor
A Working Man is a lacklustre entry in the Statham action canon, doing exactly what it needs to while adding nothing to the mix.
A Working Man is released on March 28, 2025. For information on how we score TV shows and movies, check out our scoring guidelines here. You can read our Working Man ending explained here, while for more fast fists, check out our list of the best action movies of all time.