A WORKING MAN : Tuesday 1st April 2025

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'A WORKING MAN' this week, and this American action thriller is Co-Written for the screen and Co-Produced by Sylvester Stallone and David Ayer and Directed by David Ayer, whose prior film making credits take in his Directorial debut in 2005 with 'Harsh Times', and which he would follow up with other titles including 'Street Kings' in 2008, 'End of Watch' in 2012, 'Fury' in 2014, 'Suicide Squad' in 2016, 'Bright' in 2017 and 'The Beekeeper' in 2024. This film is based on Chuck Dixon's 2014 novel 'Levon's Trade'. The film was released in the US last week too, has so far grossed US$36M from a production budget of US$40M and has garnered mixed or average reviews. 

Here, we are introduced to Levon Cade (Jason Statham, who also Co-Produces here), an ex-Royal Marines Commando who leads a peaceful life as a leader of a construction company in Chicago. 

He is close to the owners of the company - the Garcia family run by husband and wife team Joe (Michael Pena) and Carla (Noemi Gonzalez) respectively, together with their nineteen year old daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) who works in an unofficial capacity completing lesser tasks while still studying. On the day of her nineteenth birthday Jenny is kidnapped from a club she was attending that night with three other girlfriends, by Russian traffickers, bundled into the back of a van and whisked away. 

The next day Levon comes into work as normal only to be greeted by a distraught Joe and Carla saying that their daughter is missing, and pleading for Levon to find her and bring her back to them. Levon declines saying that he is no longer that man, and cannot help them. 

Later, Levon visits a former colleague whom he served with and whose life he saved although he couldn't save his eyes which now leaves Gunny Lefferty (David Harbour) blind. Gunny lives in a remote cabin in the woods, and Levon tells him the story of how Jenny is missing. Gunny tells Levon what he already knew - that he would go after those who abducted Jenny and bring her back home - he just wanted to hear it from someone else. Levon later goes to the Garcia household and tells Joe that he'll bring Jenny back to them. 

Levon learns early on that the organisation who has taken Jenny is run by the Bratva (Russian mafia), led by Symon Kharchenko (Andrej Kaminsky). After Levon interrogates and kills high-ranking captain Wolo Kolisnyk (Jason Flemyng) by drowning him whilst tied to a chair in his own pool. Symon sends his sons Danya (Greg Kolpakchi) and Vanko (Piotr Witkowski) after Levon. Levon infiltrates the organisation by pretending to be a dealer to get close to Wolo's estranged son Dimi (Maximilian Osinski), who runs the trafficking side of the business. Jenny's captors, Viper (Emmett J. Scanlan) and Artemis (Eve Mauro), try to sell her to a client, but Jenny bites the man's cheek so badly he needs thirty-six stitches and is ordered to be killed, until the client changes his mind and wants to try again with her. Meanwhile, Levon is caught by Danya and Vanko, but he kills them in close quarter combat in the back of a van, eventually dumping them and the van in a river where it quickly submerges. Later as Symon is mourning the loss of his two sons laid out in a mortuary, this signals that things have got very personal between Levon and him.

Levon takes his young daughter Merry (Isla Gie) out of school for a few days to stay with Gunny and his wife after the thugs find out who he is and threaten him, having already burned down the house where Merry lives with her grandfather after Levon's wife died two years previously. Levon rescues his father-in-law, with whom he has a very rocky relationship, who at least is grateful for saving his life. Having armed up with Gunny's secret stash of weaponry, Levon later tracks down Dimi and gets him to lead him to the compound where Jenny is being held. 

Levon kills Dimi and proceeds to gun down, knife or grenade every last Russian goon in his path, including a biker gang and their leader who arrive on the scene after the initial bloodbath. Levon finds Jenny, kills the client, then kills Viper while Jenny kills Artemis. Following this second round two more of Symon's heavies arrive on the scene - Nestor (Ricky Champ) and Karp (Max Croes), with the latter machine gunning down a police squad car that arrives who are also in on the trafficking scheme. Levon then dispenses with these two before escaping with Jenny on a motorbike, while Symon looks on from outside and out of view. Symon calls his brother to tell him of this latest development but is told to leave Levon alone and that nobody in the organisation is going to help him in his crusade for revenge, and if he persists then he will be killed. Do you understand his brother asks, to which Symon responds with a yes. He hangs up and screams into the night. 

Levon returns Jenny home to her family who all embrace and rejoice her safe arrival, before he goes off to reunite with Merry and Gunny.

Penned by Stallone and Ayer and Directed by the latter, 'A Working Man' offers nothing we haven't already seen countless times before courtesy of films from the likes of Stallone, Neeson and Butler. Here, once again Statham does what he does best as the everyman trying to put his past to rest but is called upon to unleash his very particular set of skills to reign down all hell on earth on, in this case, the Russian mob through the inventive use of guns, blades, grenades, pick axes, sledge hammers, a bucket of screws and a sack of cement. And in this respect this action flick works and delivers Statham's signature brand of ass kicking, but the storyline and the dialogue is thin on the ground, and any hints at humour fall flat. This film is not up there with last years Statham and Ayer actioner 'The Beekeeper', and it delivers nothing new to an already overcrowded genre, but what you get is exactly what it says on the box. 

'A Working Man' warrants three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-