Time: 116 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – Violence & offensive language
Cast:
Jason Statham as Levon Cade
David Harbour as Gunny Lefferty
Michael Peña as Joe Garcia
Director: David Ayer

I really liked The Beekeeper from last year, it was an over the top, silly and entertaining action thriller and ranked among director David Ayer and actor Jason Statham’s best work. A year later, the two are collaborating again for A Working Man, and I was interested in it just because of their last movie. It doesn’t really reach the level of The Beekeeper, but I still enjoyed it.

The story is a fairly simple and familiar action thriller; a man in a normal job with skills from a military past has to save a kidnapped girl, and there are Russian mobsters involved. The first act is largely serious and takes its time establishing Jason Statham’s character and the incident which has him going to rescue this girl. I do respect the time they spent setting the foundation, but the second half is definitely more entertaining. When it enters into its second act, A Working Man’s other more ridiculous elements come into play, and it’s mainly everything about the villains. Despite being criminals and human traffickers, everything about them is silly, from the way they act to the way they dress, and at certain points it even reaches comic book goofiness. From the moment that some ludicrously dressed henchmen appear towards the start of the second act, you really begin to notice a tonal shift. On one hand, this aspect did add a bright spot among the almost sleepwalking action plot, but also felt out of place from the rest of the movie. It’s like it couldn’t tell which tone to go with (especially when compared to The Beekeeper). There are definitely some problems with the writing. 2 hours isn’t a particularly great length but the pacing can really drag. The story is a bit too convoluted and wasn’t really engaging for me. Thankfully, it ends on a pretty strong note with the third act. It finally embraces the silliness and goes all out with the action with Jason Statham absolutely plowing through multiple people in violent ways.

This is a relatively familiar role for Jason Statham, but as usual he plays it very well. David Harbour, Arianna Rivas, Michael Peña are good in their parts, even if I would’ve liked to have seen a lot more of Harbour.

David Ayer’s direction is solid and has some nice visuals. The action is pretty good, although it is largely absent for the first two acts, and the camerawork and editing can be a little wonky at points. However with the third act finale, the action is cranked up and is highly entertaining to watch.

A Working Man is a standard Jason Statham action thriller. It’s a bit overlong and convoluted, but is elevated by some enjoyable absurdism and an entertaining third act. I definitely preferred The Beekeeper as far as Jason Statham and David Ayer collaborations go, but I still had some fun with A Working Man.