A Working Man (Amazon MGM, R)
Jason Statham is working with David Ayer again. Time to punch bad guys with bad aim!
Over the last ten or so years, I have had a lot of time to think about the process of review movies. It’s a highly diverse craft. You have your folks who take every film seriously, perhaps even over-seriously. They call every movie a film, or a picture. They talk about the act structure, the nuance of performances, the gravitas of scenes, the framing of each and every shot. On the other end of the spectrum you have the newly minted social media reviewers. Folks who go out of their way to be loud and spicy, frequently having a hot take above having an actual opinion. They asses movies with words like “trash” or “”mid”. They have be decrying Marvel and Disney for more than a decade. They will call a movie unbalanced or uneven, yet will hardly have the words to qualify their assessment. Along with understanding these extremes I have also become deeply familiar with a particular malaise present in the people who make a job or career out of going to the theater and telling people whether they should or should not follow suit. They’ve lost their ability to objectively see a movie for what it is and judge it from that perspective first.
Why am I detailing all of this in my review for A Working Man, a Jason Statham movie? Because it's the reason you should, if you like these movies, go watch it, regardless of what a reviewer says. Simply put, it’s how you should look at reviews of these types of movies at all times. Now what do I mean by these types of movies?
A Working Man is the second collaboration, in as many years, between Director David Ayer (famous for the first, worse Suicide Squad, Bright, and End of Watch) and action man Jason Statham. Last year’s The Beekeeper was received just fine, a middle of the road critical success with an easily attracted and pleased fanbase. Herein lies the first part of my overarching point: There is a specific audience for the “one man wrecking crew” movie. It’s a longstanding genre. A genre seeing a bit of a renaissance thanks to the John Wick movies. But its inception dates back to the first Rambo flicks. A close partner of the buddy cop movie. If you like watching a guy dismantle a crowd of bad guys with a sledgehammer, a pair of handguns, or hand to hand combat, you know how to spot a movie like this a mile away. Furthermore, the folks making these movies know how to get their audience’s attention. A Working Man is precisely this kind of movie.
Jason Statham is Levon Cade, a former black operative turned over-the-counter construction worker. He’s left the shady life of deniable operations behind in an effort to be a present and stable father for his daughter. The Garcia family, running the construction business we find Levon managing, finds out their daughter has been kidnapped. They turn to Levon, begging him to bring her home. Levon initially says no because, “I’ve left that life behind me.” But obviously, after visiting his blind war-buddy (played by David Harbour), he returns to the family and promises to bring her home safely.
If you have seen Taken, any John Wick, the Accountant, The Beekeeper, or any other movie in this very clear and formulaic genre, you know exactly what happens next and for the rest of the movie. Levon grabs his gear and starts hunting down the baddies, one by one, until he works his way to the top. Along the way most of his targets underestimate him until he beats the hell out of a room full of guys, which prompts the boss of the room to hiss under their breath, “Who are you?” To which the protagonist almost always answers by saying the title of the movie. “I’m just a working man.”
This is that. One thousand percent, this is that movie. This is one of those movies. It lands somewhere between the upper echelon flicks in this space - flicks like Nobody, Shooter, or Wrath of Man - and the lower echelon - your Expendables and the like. The action is very good but not quite great. The acting is…fine. Sometimes it’s good, most of the time it just gets in the way of the shooting and blowing things up. Commenting on the writing in movies like this feels a bit like commenting on the acting in an elementary school play. If you are there expecting to be blown away, it turns out you’re the asshole. Don’t get me wrong, would I have loved for Sylvester Stallone to have written his ass off? Yes. Am I surprised he didn’t? No absolutely not.
All in all, A Working Man is a Jason Statham action flick. He punches and shoots excellently, the bad guys punch okay but have never fired a gun before, and Inverse Ninja Law* can be observed in abundance. It’s a lot of fun, especially if you have the ability to pull your head out of your own ass and clap at the flashy lights.
*Inverse Ninja Law states that the threat level of any number of ninjas or other whatsits is inversely proportional to their numbers. Therefore, if you're attacked by a lone ninja, you're in trouble, but if you meet an army of ninjas, they're going down.