Cast: Jason Statham, David Harbour, Michael Peña, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas, Noemi Gonzalez, Emmett Scanlan, Eve Mauro
Director: David Ayer
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 116 min

The latest Jason Statham action flick is basically a routine actioner. Don’t expect any realism or an immersive experience because Statham aims for the jaw amid genre conceits.
 
In “A Working Man,” his second collaboration with David Ayer,  after “The Beekeeper,”  Statham plays  badass Levon Cade, a construction foreman for a company owned by Joe Garcia (Michael Peña). He is basically in hibernation from his military past and no one from his workplace cares about his tragic backstory that’s delivered in an animated montage. Joe’s daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), is kidnapped by human traffickers employed by a Russian mobster and Joe offers him a small fortune to recover Jenny. For Levon, who’d promised Jenny he’d always have her back,this is a matter about keeping his word.
 
The Russian mobsters here possess powerful networks, and complex internal mechanics. Levon hides his own daughter for safekeeping and works to find Jenny, while the mobsters conduct their own investigation to find out why Levon is hunting them.
 
There’s a backstory to complicate things a bit. Levon a former black-ops soldier, is now sleeping in his car and is desperately in need of funds for the legal fees necessary to secure custody of his daughter (Isla Gie) from her grandfather.
 
Levon using his well-honed skills for vigilante justice,  goes through the motions torturing and subterfuge very much a part of his array of tricks. Then he discovers his target, a wayward Russian playboy named Dimi (Maximilian Osinski), and goes about inflicting some serious damage.
 
There isn’t any narrative tension here. The script by Sylvester Stallone and Ayer, adapted from Chuck Dixon’s novel, is straightforward action oriented and concentrated on inflicting on-screen damage. Statham is purportedly portraying a larger-than-life “American” blue collar worker fighting against Russian influences. When Levon is finished smashing skulls and breaking bones after a fight in a roadhouse, Dutch (Chidi Ajufo), the boss exclaims “You’re a working man”… like we needed to know that???
 
Statham delivers as the tough nut hellbent on keeping his word but Ayer doesn’t make it any easy. There’s little dialogue, the plotting goes haywire and the lighting is messy. You’d be hurting your eyes trying to figure out the people here. Chicago’s city skyline is featured widely. Statham’s rugged and bruising fighting style is potent as ever making his everyman heroism likeable. This is a true blue Statham flick and has its own faithful audience.

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