A Working Man review – a dire, forgettable actioner

Even Jason Statham looks bored by his latest hard man turn in Davey Ayer's uninspired adaptation of Chuck Dixon's novel Levon's Trade. The post A Working Man review – a dire, forgettable actioner appeared first on Little White Lies.

Mar 26, 2025 - 22:37

A Working Man review – a dire, forgettable actioner

One has to wonder if Jason Statham ever longs for more. His career as Britain’s premiere Hard Man export began back in the late 90s when he first met Guy Ritchie, and has only gone from strength to strength in the subsequent years, spawning the successful Transporter franchise as well as a recurring role in the Fast and Furious series. Devoted disciples of Statham obviously know his best performance of all time was as the performatively macho intelligence agent Rick Ford in Paul Feig’s Spy (one wonders why we got a sequel to A Simple Favour before we got Spy 2) but he can generally be relied upon to bring a bit of roguish charm to whatever silly action film he finds himself signed on for, whether it’s The Meg or The Beekeeper.

But even The Stath seems a bit bored by A Working Man, his second collaboration with David Ayer, from a screenplay written by Ayer and, er, Sylvester Stallone (who worked with Statham on the Expendables films). The adaptation comes from Chuck Dixon’s 2014 novel ‘Levon’s Trade’, which kicked off a successful action thriller novel series – it’s safe to assume that A Working Man is intended as the opener for a new franchise – and follows the ex-marine-turned-construction-worker Levon Cade, who, per the book’s reviews, “Makes Jack Reacher seem like a crossing guard.”

We meet Levon as he’s keeping his head down. He’s living in his truck and working as a foreman for the Garcia family’s construction company while he fights a messy custody battle with his former father-in-law over his daughter Merry. (In one of the film’s frequent exposition dumps, Levon explains his wife killed herself after struggling with depression while he was on a deployment as a Royal Marine, and his father-in-law holds him responsible for her death). Yet Levon’s violent past comes in handy when Jenny (Arianna Rivas), the daughter of his employers, is abducted at a bar. The Garcias offer Levon $70,000 to find her, and he reluctantly agrees.

But the terminally humourless David Ayer makes a similar mistake with A Working Man as he did with The Beekeeper last year (which is getting a sequel, by the way) failing to inject any sort of intentional levity into the leaden plot. There are some deeply hilarious creative choices made, such as casting Statham’s old pal Jason Flemyng as Russian gangster Wolo Kolisnyk and having Levon lament to his blind friend Gunny (David Harbour) “Your eyes…I couldn’t save them. It haunts me” but not a single comedic moment feels intentional or knowing. A Working Man takes itself extremely seriously, with its baffling human trafficking plot (are rich young women really the ones most at risk of being sold into sexual slavery?) and interchangeable scenes of Levon violently offing bad guys. A vague attempt is made to make Jenny more than a hapless damsel, but this can’t hide the fact that A Working Man is essentially Pierre Morel’s Taken by another name. It’s a truly forgettable slab of action filmmaking with little respect for its audience’s intelligence, or even their time, and one has to hope Ayer and co don’t make good on their threat of making more.

ANTICIPATION.
Always up for some Statham action. David Ayer, less so. 2

ENJOYMENT.
As weak a conceit as Statham's transatlantic accent. 2

IN RETROSPECT.
A barely comprehendable slog. 1

Directed by
David Ayer

Starring
Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Merab Ninidze

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