Over three decades and 50 feature-length films (an average of almost two per year), Jason Statham has crafted an onscreen persona dependent on several key factors, starting and ending with his muscular, streamlined physicality, a monosyllabic, furrowed-brow, taciturn personality, and a preference for hyper-competent characters motivated by an unimpeachable, black-and-white moral code. Add to that smartly chosen roles that leverage Statham’s strengths and minimize his weaknesses (e.g., a limited range, an unmistakably British accent), Statham has developed a fervid fanbase. (If he shows out as he does once or twice a year, they almost always show up.) As a result, he’s become not just an action star, but also one of the most reliable box-office draws of his generation.
Adapted from longtime Punisher/Batman scribe Chuck Dixon’s 2014 novel, Levon’s Trade, by David Ayer (Suicide Squad Fury, Sabotage) and Sylvester Stallone (Cliffhanger, First Blood, Rocky), A Working Man centers on the title character (Jason Statham), Levon Cade, a widower and ex-Royal Marines commando turned Chicago-based construction crew chief for a real-estate development company owned and operated by Joe (Michael Peña) and Jenny Garcia (Arianna Rivas). Warmly regarded by the Garcias as a de facto member of their familia, including their college-age daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), Cade enjoys a seemingly enviable work environment, respected by both his employers and the immigrant-heavy crew he supervises. He even gives his crew an “all for one, one for all” pep talk before they begin their workday. Unsurprisingly, they respond favorably.
After a sequel-ready narrative feint that suggests Cade’s foes will be South of the Border human- or narco-traffickers, A Working Man’s highly serviceable plot comes into sharp focus: Jenny mysteriously disappears after a night out with her friends on the local strip, her fate unknown, the police all but useless, and Cade, moved by principle rather than the promise of cash, decides to put his special set of skills to their intended use, killing anyone, primarily of the flamboyant Russian mobster kind, who foolishly stands (or sits) in the way of saving Jenny from her sleazy captors.
A Working Man only gets more predictable from there, as Cade begins his extra-judicial killing spree at the home of the sleazy bartender involved in Jenny’s kidnapping. Unluckily for the bartender’s Russian associates, they appear at his doorstep just as Cade’s dispatching the bartender. They violently shuffle over their respective mortal coils moments later, leaving not just a messy crime scene behind, but Russian mobsters perplexed by the bloody, shotgun shell-ridden bodies left behind in his search for clues.
Suffering from a distinct lack of imagination and an inability to grasp a moral code not defined by greed, cruelty, or acquisition, the mobsters repeatedly underestimate Cade’s intentions. He’s not interested in wealth, power, or influence. He’s not even out for revenge as so many of Statham’s characters have been in the past. He just wants to return Jenny to her parents, go back to work running his construction crew, and save enough money so he can obtain partial or full custody of his precocious preteen daughter, Merry (Isla Gie), from his resentful father-in-law.
Before long, those same mobsters find their numbers decreasing sharply via non-natural means. Practically unstoppable, Cade, like his obvious inspiration before him, John Wick, gains mythic, even supernatural status (the mobsters refer to Cade as a “demon” on more than one occasion). Rather, however, than dispatching a virtual army of disposable henchmen and working his way through middle management, Cade’s goals are far more straightforward: Gather enough clues as to the identities of Jenny’s kidnappers and their employers, save Jenny from permanent harm, and dispatch those responsible for her kidnapping with extreme prejudice, so they never kidnap or traffic again.
Despite the reams of reactionary, extra-judicial killing (Cade’s the usual judge, jury, and executioner, meting out an exceptionally American brand of vigilante justice), he’s rampaging through all manner of villains, delivering cathartic comeuppance to only the most deserving of violent men and women, and otherwise safeguarding society from its worst, most destabilizing elements (here gleefully unrepentant Russian-born or second-generation Russian criminals, albeit heavily stylized and caricatured into cartoon-like figures perfect for audience laughter and ridicule).
Missing the absurdity and commitment of last year’s collaboration between Ayer and Statham, The Beekeeper, a surprise, well-deserved commercial and critical hit, and thus less satisfying, A Working Man rarely fails to deliver on its promise: Jason Statham doing Jason Statham things (i.e., killing efficiently with minimal effort, violence as both the question and the answer), an over-familiar raw meat and sliced potatoes plot, and a comforting, if unrealistic, re-balancing the onscreen world into traditional ideas of right and wrong before the end credits roll.
A Working Man opens theatrically in North America on Friday, March 28th.
