A Working Man (15)
Cast: Maximilian Osinski, Jason Flemyng, Jason Statham, Merab NinidzeGenre: Action
Author(s): David Ayer, Sylvester Stallone
Director: David Ayer
Release Date: 28/03/2025
Running Time: 116mins
Country: US
Year: 2025
Levon Cade is a former Royal Marines Commando, who proudly served his country for 22 years and now enjoys a quieter pace of life as a construction worker in Chicago. He is good friends with boss Joe Garcia and wife Carla. Joe's 19-year-old daughter Jenny is kidnapped on a night out with friends and Levon leverages his skill set to spearhead a daredevil, one-man rescue mission. He learns that Jenny has been snatched by a human trafficking ring.
LondonNet Film Review
A Working Man (15) Film Review from LondonNet
I blame Liam Neeson. His 2008 career renaissance with the unflinchingly brutal action thriller Taken pushed the start button on a seemingly endless conveyor belt of bone-crunching imitators that loosely justify gratuitous bodily harm by threatening a hero’s (chosen) family. Jason Statham has flexed his muscles in a few of these gung-ho suicide missions including yesteryear’s The Beekeeper directed by David Ayer, which pitted the Derbyshire-born actor against unscrupulous staff of a phishing call centre, who scam the weak and vulnerable out of their life savings…
Director and lead actor reunite for more bruised knuckles in A Working Man, adapted from Chuck Dixon’s novel Levon’s Trade by screenwriters Ayer and Sylvester Stallone. On-screen violence is unflinching: limbs are forcefully snapped, heads smashed into bathroom fixtures and a knife blade shoved into a gangster’s cranium through the underside of his chin. Painfully earnest dialogue frequently teeters into risibility. Statham’s brute commiserates with a blind friend, “I couldn’t save your eyes. It eats at me”, and a sex trafficker likens snatching young women to “shopping for a set of snow tyres”.
Miraculously, the central character doesn’t sustain a single bullet or knife wound in almost two hours of frenetic fisticuffs as the bad guy body count rises into respectable double digits. There are a further 10 books featuring the grizzled character of Levon Cade so Statham could conceivably reprise the role until retirement age. Be afraid.
Levon (Statham) is a former Royal Marines Commando, who proudly served his country for 22 years until he almost lost brother-in-arms Gunny (David Harbour) during a tour of duty. He traded the uniform for a sledgehammer and hard hat to work for Garcia & Family Construction run by Joe (Michael Pena) and his wife Carla (Noemi Gonzalez) in Chicago. When he’s not barking orders, Levon is embroiled in an increasingly acrimonious legal battle with his father-in-law (Richard Heap) for custody of his daughter Merry (Isla Gie).
Joe and Carla’s 19-year-old daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) is kidnapped on a night out by Viper (Emmett J Scanlan) and Artemis (Eve Mauro), two lackeys of human trafficker Dimi Kolisnyk (Maximilian Osinski), whose father Wolo (Jason Flemyng) is one of the most powerful Russian hoodlums in the city. The distraught parents beg Levon to dust off his military training and spearhead a rescue mission. “It’s not who I am any more,” he growls. Once Levon reflects on how he would react if Merry was snatched, he acquiesces to the Garcias’ desperate plea and systematically neutralises Dimi’s pervasive network.
A Working Man is a hoot for the wrong reasons, devoid of intentional tongue-in-cheek humour to offset the wanton thuggery. Statham takes each stunt sequence by the scruff of the neck and convincingly pummels co-stars into dizzied submission. Alas, the storytelling is considerably less robust. Workmanlike, in fact.
– Kim Hu
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