A Working Man, from Writer/Director David Ayer (The Beekeeper) and co-writer Sylvester Stallone, is not a comedy. There’s nothing comedic about it whatsoever, but that didn’t stop me from laughing uproariously at this ridiculous, po-faced, inane piece of action schlock. I simply couldn’t help myself. The tone of the piece is so wildly inconsistent, and it wants to be taken so seriously that it inadvertently becomes a farce.
Ayer has again teamed up with Jason Statham following their success with The Beekeeper in 2024. Where The Beekeeper was just as ridiculous as A Working Man, there was a sense of fun, whackiness, and lightness permeating the film and making it a decent watch. In A Working Man, it seems as though nobody is having fun.
Not a single one of the characters in the film behaves like an actual human being would. They’re seemingly genuine cartoon characters brought to life yet, everything in A Working Man is played so straight and so seriously that all of the fun has been sucked out of it and we’re left with a violent, joyless husk.
A Working Man Review
Statham stars as Levon Cade, ex-Royal Marines Commando, now working construction in London, Chicago, who, despite wanting to leave his old life behind, gets pulled back in. Because, of course, he does. Cade’s boss, Joe Garcia (Michael Peña), comes to him when his daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), goes missing. In the world of A Working Man, the police essentially don’t exist. Joe delivers a line about how the police don’t care about this type of case, hand-waving away any questions about law enforcement. Levon initially refuses to help the Garcias, claiming, “That’s not who I am anymore”, before almost immediately changing his mind. The plotting is so predictable that you can essentially read the screenplay on screen.
After his half-hearted refusal to assist, Levon immediately drives out to a cabin in the woods and visits his blind combat buddy Gunny, played by David Harbor for some reason. Gunny tells him, “You didn’t come here to get my permission to do something you’ve already made your mind up about” Levon drives back into town and tells the Garcias he’ll help. The diversion to Gunny’s is unnecessary and doesn’t serve the story in any way. We all know Levon is going to help, so why bother with the misdirect? If it’s to showcase David Harbor, fair call, but his character has so little screentime and adds almost nothing to the story that he could have been excised completely.
From here, Levon follows Jenny’s trail from a bar, which leads to the Russian Mob and a human trafficking ring. Although A Working Man is an action movie, it takes a long time to deliver any action. For a good long time, we watch Levon investigate, interrogate/torture and then murder a string of bad guys looking for answers. It’s not until another strange diversion that we start to get any real action.
The plot of A Working Man is generally very simple, you could call it a little too simple. However, at the midway point, it’s as though screenwriters Ayer and Stallone realised this and decided to add some complexity. Unfortunately, it comes across as convoluted rather than interesting. In a bid to get face-to-face with the Russians responsible for Jenny’s disappearance and because he’s already killed all of his other leads, Levon heads to a biker bar (accessible only by a single-lane dirt road with logs across it?) based on a tip from his US Marshal (?) mate. Somehow, Levon arrives on a motorcycle that was never seen before and is never seen again.
Here, he pretends to be a meth buyer to get facetime with the supplier, presumably the Russian mobster he’s after. Throughout this entire sequence, I was wondering just exactly what the hell was going on. Even though A Working Man had been a largely perfunctory Statham flick up until that point, it had a certain rhythm going. This meth-based diversion grounds proceedings to a halt and is conveniently swept aside once Levon comes face-to-face with his actual target. It’s as though the Ayer and Stallone thought things were moving along too easily (they were) and thought there needed to be some additional stakes. This whole plot thread just doesn’t work and adds (almost) nothing at the end of the day.
From here, Levon enters the end-game and sets about killing his way to Jenny, and A Working Man settles into a bland set of action set-pieces with so-so choreography, editing that makes it impossible to fully enjoy and a grim determination on seriousness. It’s why A Working Man was making me laugh so hard. It is utterly ridiculous, but plays so straight that it seems like a joke.
In the end, Levon wins, far too easily, Jenny is saved, and everyone goes about their lives as if nothing ever happened.
A Working Man veers into ‘so bad it’s good’ territory on occasion, but then goes right back to being just plain bad. It’s almost good enough to recommend, but by the end, I felt exhausted and aside from my inappropriate laughter during incredibly gory death scenes, I couldn’t recall any moments of genuine fun. Action movies are supposed to be fun, and somewhere along the way, the makers of A Working Man forgot about that. Statham’s trademark charm and charisma are nowhere on display, and instead, he gruffly goes through each scene without a hint of a wink or smile.
Plot points are introduced and dropped without a second thought, too. Levon’s daughter lives with her grandfather due to her mother’s suicide, and early on a scene sets up Levon’s impending legal battle with the grandfather for custody. This is never mentioned again. After the Russians track Levon down, they go to the grandfather’s house and burn it down. Levon manages to save the grandfather, who is now convinced of Levon’s danger to his granddaughter, but then in the same breath agrees to let Levon take her with him…WHY?!
If A Working Man had matched tonally more closely with The Beekeeper or any of Statham’s other fun action movies (The Mechanic, The Transporter), it might have been a good time. But its unflinching desire to be taken seriously puts it at odds with what it portrays, and the result is a mess of tonal confusion, half-baked action and a very familiar plot. Similarly, if the action had been up to par, more of A Working Man’s sins could be forgiven, but the action is rote at best.
A Working Man wants to be John Wick. Instead, it’s closer to Under Siege.
Leo Stevenson attended a screening of A Working Man as a guest of Warner Bros.
