Jason Statham is cosplaying a construction laborer when “A Working Man” begins. He’s making sure the rebar is spaced correctly and the concrete is correctly mixed. But we all know where his real strengths are: Beating up people, ferociously.
Soon enough — faster than this one-time springboard diving champion used to hit the water — Statham will be doing what he does best in an action movie made by millionaires that hopes to tap into blue-collar chic.
Statham plays a sort of hero-laying-low in director and co-writer David Ayer’s latest collab — they previously teamed up on “The Beekeeper” — with the addition of a co-writer who knows a thing or two about lone-wolf underdogs — Sylvester Stallone.
When the 19-year-old daughter of his boss is snatched during a night out with girlfriends in Chicago, they turn to Statham, a former anti-terrorist commando for the UK’s Royal Marines, which at least explains the British accent.
But he can’t help them — he’s given up that old life. “I’m a different person now,” he says. It’s not who I am anymore.” Admittedly, he says this shortly after fighting off a gang messing with one of his workers, attacking them with a bucket of nails. an ax and a bag of gravel.
He’s a widower and a single father saving up money to fight — legally this time — for more custody by sleeping in his Ram truck. His in-laws want to limit his visitation, alleging he suffers from PTSD, a very cynical use by the movie-makers of a popcorn flick with a body count north of a hundred. “I hurt, too,” he tells his daughter.
A visit to an old military buddy — David Harbour, superb — helps change his mind. “God help them,” says Harbour’s character after the decision is made. He knows what’s in store for anyone getting in the way of Statham’s oddly named Levon Cade (scramble the letters and you get “Novel Aced,” go figure).
So begins Statham’s version of “Taken” mixed with a blue-collar version of “John Wick.” Our construction worker-turned-vigilante is reassuring to the family of the missing teen. “I’m gonna bring her home. I promise,” he vows.
We soon plunge into an underworld of Russian mobsters, designer drugs, human trafficking, corrupt cops and a vicious biker gang run by a guy who sits on a throne of motorcycle parts. People are waterboarded, shot, stabbed, smashed with animal skulls, blown up by grenades and burned with hot coffee.
“All of this is for a girl?” asks one incredulous Russian mob boss, who is hogtied and dangled over his own swimming pool as Statham tortures him while munching on some toast he’s made in his fancy kitchen.
Shall we talk about the rich now? The upper-level mobsters wear cravats, bow ties and hold gold-tipped walking sticks. One even wears a cape and uses a cigarette holder, like a sort of Mister Burns from “The Simpsons.” The drug dealers wear buffoonish designer duds, “do business” in restaurant banquets and all have attache cases with stacks of banded money, like it’s still the ‘80s. They are all venal, foppish and perverted. The big finale takes place in a tucked-away farm casino with fancy-dressed fat cats.
This is in contrast to Statham, an orange safety vest kind of guy with a soldier’s moral compass. He at one point throws into the air enough $100 bills to buy a Lamborghini. But he’s not doing it the money, even though he needs it. He’s there for the girl.
“A Working Man” fetishizes its blue-collar ethic at a time when extremely wealthy Americans have taken key roles in the second Donald Trump administration and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is slicing at government jobs (Veterans are increasingly facing the burden. ) Trump himself donned an orange vest when he cosplayed a garbage man on the campaign trail. Everyone loves the working class these days.
Anyway, we’re not here for a lesson, we’re here for some ultra-violence. “A Working Man” does it well, especially a struggle in the confined space of a moving van. The plot gets a little stretched over two hours — including a ludicrous motorcycle chase scene when enough bullets are fired at Statham as were expended in the Battle of Fallujah — but a bright moment is having the snatched teen (a very good Arianna Rivas, someone to watch) step into her own power.
“A Working Man” is exactly what you expect when you unleash Statham on a noble mission. “You killed your way into this,” he’s told by his buddy. “You’re gonna have to kill your way out of it.” In other words, let Statham work, man.
“A Working Man,” an Amazon MGM Studios release in theaters this Friday, is rated R for “strong violence, language throughout and drug content.” Running time: 116 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
