What do you get when David Ayer (Suicide Squad), Sylvester Stallone (Rambo), and Chuck Dixon (Harley Quinn) sit down together and write a screenplay? You end up with a "one-man army" action/thriller starring Jason Statham (The Meg) called A Working Man. The movie has a simple premise but a complicated storyline that creates a number of questions as it reveals more and more plot points. Almost like a scavenger hunt, the story discloses two more puzzles as it resolves one. While this may seem like an intriguing concept it gets tedious, bogged down with details that become convoluted the further along one gets into the film.
Levon Cade (Statham) is former British military special forces who has traded in his rifle for a hammer. Nowadays he is the foreman for a construction company, lives out of his car half the time, and only sees his preteen daughter, Merry (Isla Gie; The Outlaws), for a few hours each week. And he is rather content. However, when his boss's daughter, Jenny (Ariana Rivas; The Harvest), doesn't return home after a night of partying with her college friends, her father, Joe (Michael Peña; Ant-Man), asks his employee and friend, Levon, to help locate Jenny before something awful happens.
When it comes to fitting the part, Statham is well cast. Levon is quiet and brooding but very physical when necessary. Statham typically does his own stunts, so the physicality of the role isn't anything unfamiliar and he handles it very well. Even into his late 50s (hello Keanu Reeves), Statham can still kick ass with the best of them. Rivas is decent as are Jason Flemyng (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Maximillian Osinski (In Time), and Merab Ninidze (Conclave) who play their parts nicely. However, the scene stealer is Gie who is set up perfectly to deliver some terrific one-liners that offer some comedic moments. David Harbour (Stranger Things) has a smaller part but does as much as he can with it. Peña is awkward as Jenny's dad, and this may be the first time I didn't like him in a particular role.
While the fight choreography is pretty decent it comes across as almost over-rehearsed at times which makes it less enjoyable. As previously mentioned, the story is also convoluted as Levon finds a clue that leads him to the next place where he finds another clue, and then the next one, etc. After about an hour or so of that cat and mouse game, Levon really isn't much closer to finding Jenny and the audience begins to wonder "what's the point". The script needed some streamlining to prevent the movie from getting tedious and boring.
Director David Ayer doesn't offer much in the way of clarifying the haphazard story with his editing and his pacing is slow. He does frame some of the action shots very well which isn't always an easy task to accomplish. Conversely, his ending shot, while setting up the movie for a sequel (of course), is laughable and moronic. It would have been better if, instead of screaming, the mob boss had "vowed revenge" (in Russian no less).
I can see why Stallone co-wrote the script and produced the film since, had it been made 20 years ago, he could have played the role of Levon... single father, construction foreman, former special ops personnel... sound familiar? Or, again, the role could have also gone to Liam Neeson (Schindler's List) back in 2005, putting Statham in impressive company as far as action stars are concerned.
If you want some drama with typical action sequences, this is the movie you should be heading to see this weekend. Not the best action thriller but not the worst either, A Working Man is a middle of the road film.
Grade: C+
