Summary
A solid, no-frills action thriller that delivers exactly what you’d expect—bone-crunching fights, gruff one-liners, and Statham doing what he does best.
Over the last decade or so, actor Jason Statham and director David Ayer have each carved out their own distinct legacies. Statham has built a career on playing relentless, no-nonsense tough guys waging one-man wars on wrongdoers, while Ayer has made a name for himself with gritty crime films featuring characters brooding with guns pointed in different directions. It was only a matter of time before their paths crossed.
Following their first collaboration on The Beekeeper, Statham here plays Levon Cade, a widowed, former military badass now going straight with a construction job. He struggles to make ends meet for his young daughter, whose grandfather wants to legally separate her from his influence. But when Jenny (Arianna Rivas), the college-aged daughter of Levon’s boss (Michael Peña), is randomly kidnapped by Russian human traffickers, Levon is drawn back into his old life of violence.
Based on the books by Chuck Dixon and with a screenplay penned by Ayer and Sylvester Stallone, A WORKING MAN wastes no time getting down to brass tacks. Taking a page from every revenge-rescue thriller in living memory, Statham gets to spread his particular set of skills across the screen at regular intervals. Each excruciating torture scene, fistfight, or shootout serves to reinforce Levon’s (and by extension, Statham’s) physical supremacy. The constant cutaways to his child provide the requisite moral high ground.
Ayer paints on a splashy, almost cartoonish canvas. Mobsters are rendered in broad strokes—Dimi (Maximilian Osinski), a high-ranking Russian boss, looks like a cross between a French duke and Nandor the Relentless from What We Do in the Shadows. Biker Dutch (Chidi Ajufo) lounges on a throne of skulls in the back of a roadhouse bar.
Yet somehow, it all fuses into a momentum-driven, occasionally stylish action flick. Every quip and taciturn mugshot drew giggles from the audience—equal parts affectionate mockery and knowing appreciation. We know exactly what we’re getting into, and on that level, it doesn’t disappoint.
As it builds to its chaotic final showdown—a reverse siege packed with bikers and shiny, long-coated henchmen—you can’t help but think of the gloriously excessive ‘90s action thrillers that threw everything at the screen. Instead of taking one thing off before leaving the house, A WORKING MAN straps on a few more clips and punches the mirror in the nose.
While never destined to revolutionise the genre, Ayer and Stallone have struck upon a reliable formula in a ready-made franchise package. One could happily consume these like fast food every couple of years, safe in the knowledge that there’s always another job for this working man right around the corner.
2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: David Ayer | WRITER: Sylvester Stallone, David Ayer (Based on the book Levon’s Trade by Chuck Dixon) | CAST: Jason Statham, Michael Peña, David Harbour, Arianna Rivas | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. (Australia), Amazon/MGM (US) | RUNNING TIME: 116 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 27 March 2025 (Australia), 28 March 2025 (USA)
