“A Working Man” (2025) adapts Chuck Dixon’s “Levon’s Trade,” the first in a series of twelve books, which will sound like a threat if you see this movie. One movie is too many. An ex-Royal Marines commando, Levon Cade (Jason Statham), became a construction worker in Chicago so he can raise his daughter, Merry (Arianna Rivas), but he gets pulled back in when Jenny Garcia (Isla Gie), his boss’ daughter, gets kidnapped. Soon he is at war with the Russian mafia. Will he save Jenny before it is too late? Honestly, he takes his sweet ass time getting to her that she almost saved herself! Where is Liam Neeson when you need him? Dreckitude! Do not pay money to see this movie! Do not leave your house to see this movie! Do not watch this movie.
I get it. Statham is hot, has a great voice and looks like he can fight. In director David Ayer’s hands, he is completely wasted because Ayer never shot a scene that he did not think, “Could my camera move at the same time as the fighting, so it is a fractured, inscrutable mess?” The only thing worse than the directing is the editing. So many needless cuts break up the fight scenes that editor Fred Raskin must moonlight as a referee. Also so much lens flare. Is the cameraman ok? Someone check that person’s retinas! What is the point of an action movie if you cannot see the fight? Am I never going to see another good fight scene again? It is simple. Get a tripod. Put the camera on a tripod. Keep the camera far enough away to capture the maximum amount of body movement. Turn it on before the fight starts. Turn it off when you have the shot. Rinse and repeat if you want another angle. Watch some classic Hong Kong movies starring Michelle Yeoh or Jet Li, “The Matrix” (1999), “Oldboy” (2003), “Blade” (1998), most Quentin Tarantino films, hell, the Netflix iteration of “Daredevil.” If Ayer and Raskin worked on “John Wick” (2014), it would have sucked. It is easier to accept my civic institutions regressing and crumbling into dust than the deterioration of action cinema. We used to be a society! Am I never going to get another satisfying action movie?
Statham’s best fight scene is in the back of the van. It is still a POS, but his feet maneuver so quickly that it is a blink and miss it scene. It is so fast that there was not time to edit it into multiple shots, and it was an irrepressible moment where Statham or his stunt man had an opportunity to showcase their physical talents. He bares almost zero skin. At most, you get a clavicle.
The story is not much better. It is the most circuitous investigation ever. Was Levon supposed to be bad at his first job, and it was the real reason that he quit? He kills a lot of people before getting information from them. Towards the middle of “A Working Man,” he reaches the key to finding Jenny, gives his real photo identification then leaves not to see him again until way later. Levon wastes so much time killing people that it seems to be the point, not getting Jenny. Jenny feels like a cover story. Jenny’s dad, Joe (Michael Peña, who is apparently not allowed to be in good movies anymore), offers him stacks of cash to retrieve his precious daughter, which Levon turns down then proceeds to produce bricks of money throughout the film. Is that the money that he is supposed to be using for his lawyer? He was living in his car to save money, but he rents a place so he could have a crime board! It never occurs to him that his kid could get caught in the crossfire. Are you dumb? Yes. Does he not love his daughter? Not more than killing. She legit gets forgotten for most of the movie. Is the source material this bad or did cowriters Ayer and Sylvester Stallone (yes, the man who wrote “Rocky”) screw it up?
“A Working Man” would have worked if Levon arrived to rescue Jenny, and she already escaped because t would have been hilarious and made fun of itself. Jenny actually got the best shot action scenes with the worst captors ever. They were always menacing her, and she would kick their ass with her hands and sometimes feet tied up. Rivas put in that work, and she was the best part of an awful movie. When she gets kidnapped, she is wearing pearls, then Levon finds one pearl. Let me tell you something about necklaces. If one pearls falls off, the necklace is broken. Those pearls would be everywhere. If that is in the book, then some books need to be burned.
“A Working Man” is too long. The denouement is a veritable curtain call of all the living villains who crossed Levon earlier just so he can dispatch them. It is clown car levels of stupid. It would not be a bad idea if each round had better fighters until he hit the final boss. Nope. It is just a series of people lining up to die quickly. I am not exaggerating slightly. This description is accurate. By the end of the movie, I’m pretty sure that I could take Levon for longer because I was filled with so much rage at how much time I wasted watching this excrement.
Kudos to costume designer Tiziana Corvisieri, who made some outlandish choices, but at least the clothes kept me awake because they were so loud. Also I have a proclivity for clothes that are so ugly that they are almost pretty…almost. Ugly pretty. It is shot in Chicago, and one location featured a gorgeous mansion. Shout out to Max Croes, who seemed to be the only actor who could consistently capture the camera’s attention as Karp, one of two people hired to track Dimi (Maximillian Osinski). His partner in crime, Nestor (Ricky Champ), had a memorable last shot on screen. It felt like they understood the assignment. If Levon really wanted to kill people, their actions conveyed the opposite because they were like the T-Rex in the “Jurassic Park/World” franchise: lots of noise but not a lot of death. Jenny took out more people. Go, Jenny!
I have not seen a lot of Statham movies (“The Meg,” “War” and “Spy”), but if you are being honest, are they actually ever good? “Spy” (2015) was great, but he was a supporting character in an action comedy. I’m beginning to think that everyone’s attraction is clouding their judgment just like people confusing tall for hot. Adam Driver and Pete Davidson are tall, not attractive. You can find them attractive, but they are not objectively attractive. They can be lovely, talented people, but they are not attractive. I think Robert Carlyle and Steve Buscemi are hot, but I’m not nominating them on a list of most attractive actors because I am wrong. Three times is a charm, and the answer appears to be negative. Don’t say I did not warn you.
