A Working Man plays like a mashup of John Wick (2014) and Taken (2008), combining the “Russian gangster’s son messed with the wrong guy” and “human traffickers messed with the wrong guy” premises into something aggressively unoriginal. That’s not a slight, as the movie turns that unoriginality into a feature rather than a bug; it’s a trick that star Jason Statham and director-cowriter David Ayer deftly pulled off with their last film together, The Beekeeper (2024).
Statham’s Levon is a quintessential “wrong guy,” an ex-Royal Marine who now works as a construction crew leader for a family business. When his boss’s daughter is kidnapped, he begins an investigation/killing spree that pits him against quintessential bad guys whose looks have been turned up to eleven. The Russian gangsters wear gilded tracksuits with matching bucket hats, while the leader of a meth-dealing biker gang sits on a throne of motorcycle parts.
It’s that turned-up aspect that makes A Working Man, well, work. Rather than attempting to differentiate itself from the archetypes and narrative beats viewers know well, the movie leans into them, making them absurd without ever turning into an outright comedy. Lines like “No half measures,” “You wish I was a cop,” and an oft-repeated “I’m gonna bring her home” are perfectly at home and transcend their roteness by virtue of being overdeployed.
The action isn’t quite as spectacularly over-the-top as the narrative, but its simple, brutal choreography with a focus on impact over fluidity and two standout vehicular set pieces ensure that A Working Man doesn’t skimp on its required violent delights, either.
While it’s a bit too densely plotted, leading to an unnecessarily long runtime, the almost giddy self-awareness and solid action make A Working Man another hypercliche winner for Statham and Ayer. R, 116 min.
Wide release in theaters
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