A Working Man Review

Jason Statham and David Ayer team up for a second time for an adaptation of Chuck Dixon’s first novel, Levon’s Trade.

Levon Cade (Statham) is a former Royal Marine who works on a construction site in Chicago. He is forced to use his special set of skills again when his boss’ daughter, Jenny Garcia (Arianna Rivas), disappears after a night out. Cade soon crosses paths with the Russian Mafia, and his investigation broadens.

Statham and Ayer previously worked together on 2024’s The Beekeeper. It was made on a modest $40 million budget, and it made a healthy profit at the box office. It showed there was still a place for mid-budget theatrical action films, even if The Beekeeper’s quality was dubious. A Working Man’s early box-office numbers show it will probably have a similar success as The Beekeeper.

There were a lot of similarities between The Beekeeper and A Working Man. Both were about an ex-British soldier who found solace working in America and befriends the people who took him in. When Statham’s friend ends up in trouble, he tries to help them out, which leads them into a rabbit hole of crime and corruption. Both films were shot in England despite being set in America and not doing a good job at hiding the location-doubling. Audiences can play spot the British or Irish actor drinking game.

A Working Man aimed to be a gritty crime story. It was set in the underbelly of Chicago, which meant there were a lot of dingy bars, clubs, and warehouses, and the villains were sex traffickers. It was similar to Taken and The Equalizer, which involved older badasses who investigated the seedy underworlds of Paris and Boston, respectively. A Working Man has been marketed as an action-thriller, but it was really a thriller with some action in it since Cade acted as a detective who had to survey the Russian Mafia.

Ayer has lots of experience making crime thrillers, such as Harsh Times, Street Kings, End of Watch, and Bright, and he wrote the screenplay for Training Day. Ayer likes to make grounded and gritty crime worlds, yet fill them with some wild characters. The leader of the Russian Mafia walked around with a cane decorated with a skull, and the younger members of the organisations were entitled nepo-babies who dressed up like they wanted to become gang members for Jared Leto’s Joker. It was a contrast. The screenplay and direction lacked any subtlety since the dialogue was expository, especially in the first act, and the music was overly dramatic throughout.

The story in A Working Man was meant to be straightforward: a man rescues a teenager from a sex ring. Yet it got overly complicated because it had so many subplots and factions that slowly converged. So much was going on that the film turned from Cade trying to find Jenny to an Englishman taking down a faction of the Russian Mob. It was easy to forget about Jenny’s existence. The filmmakers didn’t know where to put their focus, although the film was originally envisioned to be a TV series.

Ayer co-wrote the screenplay with Sylvester Stallone. A Working Man did share a storyline with Rambo: Last Blood since both films showed daughter-like figures being abducted by gangs for sex trafficking. Rambo: Last Blood ended the Rambo franchise on a low ebb, and A Working Man tried to act as an apology considering when the handling the sex trafficking themes.

Stallone is known for having conservative beliefs, and these were inserted in A Working Man since it wanted to be a celebration of service personnel. Cade was someone who sacrificed for his country but was discarded after his service, just like Rambo in First Blood. Cade was willing to use torture to obtain information, including waterboarding. This made A Working Title look like it was made during the height of the War on Terror.

A Working Man was a perfunctory crime thriller that was time ridiculous. It was too serious to be enjoyed yet too silly to be taken seriously. Anyone going into A Working Man for an action experience will be disappointed.