The latest action thriller from director David Ayer and actor Jason Statham begins with one style and then embarks on something completely different. With a screenplay written by Sylvester Stallone and Ayer (based on the 2014 novel Levon’s Trade by Chuck Dixon), A Working Man starts as a straight action-thriller but then decides it is a campy, over-the-top cartoon of a movie that never takes itself too seriously. I was actually entertained by a lot of what happens in this crazy film. Still, the presentation of this story and all that happens is a case of the filmmakers not knowing precisely what they want from this movie.
Jason Statham stars as Levon Cade, a former British military commando with exceptional skills who has decided to live in America as a blue-collar construction worker. Working for Garcia Construction, he lives a very modest life, hoping to maintain a presence in his young daughter’s life. When his boss’s daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), gets abducted by a human trafficker, Levon decides to use his skills to rescue her from the Russian gangsters responsible for her kidnapping.
Though this movie has entertaining moments, I found myself bewildered and laughing at how ridiculous it gets. Though the film starts out seriously, it eventually goes into absurdly ridiculous territories with the antagonists becoming more and more cartoonish. If the filmmakers had completely committed to the ludicrous, they could have had a schlocky masterpiece. However, the entire affair feels like they did not know what they were doing or what they hoped to accomplish.
As much as I like Jason Statham and what he usually brings to his roles, I feel he signed up for a paycheck. There is little to no enthusiasm here, and the other cast members are having a better time. So, it should go without saying that I did not care for this movie overall. It isn’t quite one of those entertaining films because it is so bad, but it comes close.