Film Review: A WORKING MAN (2025): A Watchable but Formulaic Jason Statham Action Picture Full of Mind-Numbing Violence
A Working Man Review
A Working Man (2025) Film Review, a movie directed by David Ayer, written by Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Dixon and David Ayer and starring Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Merab Ninidze, Maximilian Osinski, Cokey Falkow, Michael Pena, David Harbour, Noemi Gonzalez, Arianna Rivas, Isla Gie, Emmett J Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Kristina Poli, Greg Kolpakchi, Piotr Witkowski, Chidi Ajufo and Ricky Champ.
David Ayer’s new Jason Statham vehicle, A Working Man, feels like an adrenaline rush that’s been done and redone a million times before. Hollywood produces movies like this sporadically and while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with A Working Man from a technical standpoint, the film is almost a carbon copy of the last Rambo film in terms of its basic overall premise. That’s not so surprising when you consider that the new picture was actually co-written by Sly Stallone. If you like Statham’s movies, you may enjoy this one and its ending isn’t as bad as the final Rambo‘s conclusion, but if you’ve seen one Statham revenge picture, you’ve seen this one already. Consider this new picture Taken meets Rambo.
In the new film, Statham portrays Levon Cade, a working-class construction guy at a fairly successful company run mostly by Michael Pena’s character, Joe. When the young college-aged daughter of Joe (played by Arianna Rivas) is kidnapped, the movie’s action kicks into full gear. It seems this young girl was celebrating a successful semester of scholastic course work when she went out with some friends who all got fake ID’s together. Though the movie advertises this as a human trafficking thriller, it underplays the premise a bit to focus more on Russian goons who Statham’s Levon takes out of the equation one at a time.
There are some issues with the film that start right at the beginning. One of Levon’s co-workers is harassed by a couple of guys who Levon puts in their place, but these particular goons’ purpose is never really fully explained to the viewer. That is a small issue when compared to David Harbour’s character, Gunny Lefferty, who appears to help Levon out by watching Levon’s daughter, Merry (Isla Gie). Harbour is given way too little screen time to make his presence feel like anything other than a favor he’s doing for Statham, Stallone and the filmmakers.
Violence saturates the movie, and audiences may applaud the action scenes which are a bit over-the-top but still watchable. Statham’s character’s ability to kick butt in his efforts to find his boss’s daughter before it’s too late helps make the movie carry itself along at a rapid pace. However, the film runs almost two hours and is ultimately way too long. It’s not boring, but it’s repetitive and emotionally empty. Levon uses his old very particular set of skills from his past life in the military to help locate the lowlifes who want to exploit the boss’s daughter for financial gain. This is all pretty predictable stuff.
Sly Stallone wrote a script here that feels like a movie Stallone has done more times than he actually has. By enlisting Statham as the lead, Stallone tries to pull the wool over the viewers’ eyes and make them think that there’s more going on than there actually is. There are two father/daughter plots that parallel one another. Levon and his daughter, Merry, have a bond which Levon tries to keep safe by hiding Merry while he kicks the bad guys’ asses. This is juxtaposed against Pena’s character’s desire to reunite with his own daughter before she is assaulted and exploited. Besides some particular complexity to the story line, everything else here is pretty much straightforward and it’s mostly by-the-numbers action.
A Working Man isn’t as bad as some recent action/adventure films. Statham, as always, is a reliable action hero and Arianna Rivas as the kidnap victim is a fresh talent who has enough charisma to make the viewer care about her predicament. She even gets to add some intensity to the movie as she attacks her captor while handcuffed to a pipe. However, this film plods on endlessly repeating the same violence again and again. Statham beats someone up, kills them, rinse and repeat and so on and so forth. It’s not boring, but it’s not breaking new ground either.
I may have been the target audience for A Working Man when I was in my 20’s, but these days, after having seen so many films of this sort, more is expected to rise a picture like this to the recommended viewing level. There are villains who aren’t really too memorable either which lessens the quality of the film as a whole. Still, Statham delivers the action for his die-hard fans and if you admire his work, you may just find this movie something you would potentially like.
Rating: 6/10
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