Jason Statham’s latest is a no-nonsense action thriller that gets the job done.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Directed by David Ayer (TV’s “The Beekeeper”) and co-written by Ayer and Sylvester Stallone, based on a book by Chuck Dixon, “A Working Man” is not much more than a “Taken” (2008) knockoff starring Jason Statham instead of Liam Neeson. And guess what? It turns out to be a decent enough formula for B-movie success. I mean, Statham has a “very particular set of skills” of his own, right? At 57, he may be getting a bit over the hill for the film’s extensive hand-to-hand combat scenes. But he’s obviously still in great shape, and he handles the demands of the film quite credibly (I hope his presumably younger stunt people took the brunt of the punishment).
Instead of Albanian sex traffickers, the bad guys this time out are more timely Russian gangsters played in over-the-top bad guy style by several terrific actors, including operatic turns by Maximilian Osinski (TV’s “Ted Lasso”) and the criminally underestimated Jason Flemyng (“The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”). Statham is former Royal Marine Levon Cade, who has given up fighting in Afghanistan and whose new specialty is raising high-rises in Chicago, where a large part of his team is immigrant. Levon’s change of circumstances are nicely anatomized by Ayer and first-time cinematographer Shawn White with a montage of spent shells transforming into long metal screws. Levon is part of the extended family of his hardworking employer Joe Garcia (Michael Pena), his wife and partner Carla (Noemi Gonzalez), and their smart and smart-mouthed daughter, pianist and employee Jenny (Arianna Rivas). Jenny and Levon have a surrogate father-daughter relationship. Levon is a widow with a preteen daughter named Merry (Isla Gie), who lives with her grandfather Dr. Jordan Roth (Richard Heap). Grandpa disapproves of Levon and believes he has “untreated PTSD.” He’s not wrong.
On a heavy-drinking girls’ night out, Jenny is kidnapped by a cohort of twisted Russian gangster Dimi Kolisnyk (Osinski) and is prepped to be sold to a deep-pocketed lunatic, planning to kill her for kicks when he’s done with her. In the meantime, Jenny is held captive by aptly-named kidnapper Viper (Emmett J. Scanlan, “Peaky Blinders”) and his wicked, witch-like compatriot Artemis (Eve Mauro). Once Levon discovers where Jenny went missing (a busy downtown bar where the young bartender sells drugs), he begins his bloody, bone-breaking, water-boarding quest to find her and return her to her bereft parents. At first, he is reluctant to get involved in what he knows will require him to call upon his brutal fighting and shooting skills. But we all know how this goes, and that is a part of the appeal of this sort of story. We know exactly what to expect: bloody mayhem. Oh yes, in addition to these characters, we meet Gunny Lefferty (David Harbour), Levon’s fellow soldier blinded in combat but still deadly with a bow and arrow, who lives with his wife in nearby woods.
Statham, a veteran of the memorable Transporter series, is a better actor than he gets credit for, and the material is above average here. I think there was an opportunity to turn these Russian bad guys into “Anora”-level grotesque, comical blockheads. But Ayer and Stallone are not exactly famous for their comedy chops. The film is replete with fist fights, shootouts, and chases and the sort of corny family-based sentimentality that we can trace in Stallone all the way back to Rocky (1976).
The film has a definite gun fetish. Among his battle-ready goodies, Levon packs a sawed-off, pump-action shotgun, a vintage Springfield Armory M14, grenades, and a “Rambo”-ready knife. His adversaries pack everything from high-powered revolvers to an M60 machine gun. In addition to his other skills, Levon is well-versed in high-tech devices. Artemis scans several screens to reveal their secrets in an evocation of Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West. A couple of particularly dumb Russian mobsters wear “couture” leisure suits. A fistfight in the back of a van between a handcuffed Levon and two armed captors is particularly well done. As the resilient Jenny, Rivas is a star-to-be. Flemyng’s barbaric gangster gets one of the most memorable sendoffs in recent memory. A Russian paterfamilias believes that the “thing” killing his family is a ”demon.” He’s not wrong. “A Working Man” is a hoot, and the fact that it seems like it’s not over at the end is deliberate (and check out Flemyng in the barking mad 2014 Nikolai Gogol-based Slavic fantasy “Forbidden Empire”).
‘A Working Man’
Rating: R for strong violence, profanity, and drug use.
Cast: Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas
Director: David Ayer
Writer: Ayer, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Dixon
Running time: 1 hour, 56 minutes
Where to Watch: AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway and suburban theaters.
Grade: B+
Boston Movie News 