Director: David Ayer
Writer: Sylvester Stallone, David Ayer
Stars: Jason Statham, David Harbour, Arianna Rivas
Synopsis: Levon Cade left his profession behind to work construction and be a good dad to his daughter. But when a local girl vanishes, he’s asked to return to the skills that made him a mythic figure in the shadowy world of counter-terrorism.
The savior narrative is a staple in the action genre and kidnapping is one plot point that gets the audience’s blood pumping. There is a long history of successful films about men saving women who have been kidnapped. Much like star Jason Statham and director David Ayer’s outing last year, The Beekeeper, which took on fraud targeting older people, A Working Man is building its action around a topic, human trafficking, that is infuriating a lot of people.
Jason Statham is the perfect vessel to channel this type of savior fantasy. He’s become much more of an everyman hero over the last 15 years or so. Yes, even though he’s British, Statham represents the classic American action hero. In this film he embodies what most heterosexual American men wish they could be. He’s an incredibly capable, highly skilled, defender of women; and he does it all while wearing his male pattern baldness like a badge of honor rather than a hidden shame.
The only shame here is that most of the action is ridiculously difficult to see. Director David Ayer and cinematographer Shawn White have made the baffling choice to shoot most of the hand-to-hand combat in close up. Adding onto this, editor Fred Raskin cutting each move into millisecond chunks and it seems like Statham walked into the room, and a minute later all the other men there are just on the ground with dislocated limbs. An action movie deserves more than close-ups of the disgruntled expression permanently stuck on Statham’s face. At least the final gun battle redeems these early confounding scenes, in a way.
Though, it’s hard to find much in the way of a truly compelling action film here. It’s mostly by the numbers. So much so that whatever sort of ludicrous name Statham’s character has (Levon Cade), you never see him as anyone but Statham. His performances rarely vary and that may be the point. This is where the spirit and the enjoyment of the film lies. Like Charles Bronson before him and Dwayne Johnson contemporaneously, the power of the persona is what sells the tickets. People pay to see Jason Statham kick butt and the fact he’s a character at all is completely beside the point.
What makes this film actually different is that the woman Statham is trying to save is no damsel. Jenny (Arianna Rivas) is set up to be another spoiled college girl, but she can absolutely handle herself. She isn’t a victim cowering in the corner, but a woman who is terrified choosing first fight then flight. She does everything she can possibly do given the circumstances she’s in. It doesn’t help her that even though many of her captors find this kidnapping morally reprehensible they do nothing to aid her.
That is what A Working Man is really trying to get at. It’s not that all money is bad, but the people able to pay everyone, the elites, are corrupt. Statham is on a separate moral playing field because he doesn’t need money. After his first kill, he takes the money from the corpses only to return it to its rightful owner before killing him. The film holds the person who sees value in people over money as the righteous ideal. A Working Man never goes so far as to promote an anti-capitalist agenda, just a nebulous anti-elite one.
A Working Man tries to do many things with its plot, even going so far as to layer each of the groups of antagonists Statham encounters on top of each other during the final firefight like level bosses before he can get to the main boss at the end of this particular video game. But people don’t go to see a movie like A Working Man for plot, story, or character development. They go for action. If it’s action you’re looking for, A Working Man supplies it in confusing, quick fights that will leave you unsatisfied. Save it for when it hits the top ten on a streaming platform and you remember it exists.
