The Beekeeper was not only one of last year’s most fun surprises, but it also marked a return to form for both Jason Statham and director David Ayer. It worked out so well that the duo immediately teamed up on another film less than a year later. The end result is not a Beekeeper sequel, but rather A Working Man—an adaptation of the Chuck Dixon novel Levon’s Trade. They trade in The Beekeeper’s winking silliness for old-school grit, but A Working Man still delivers the brutal action one would expect from a Statham flick.
Statham plays Levon Cade, a former Royal Marines commando now living in Chicago as a construction worker for land developer Joe Garcia (Michael Peña). Levon, a widower, leads a meagre lifestyle, spending his time and money outside of work fighting his father-in-law’s attempts to reduce the already-limited time he has with his daughter Merry (Isla Gie). However, a night out with friends leads to Joe’s daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), being kidnapped by human traffickers affiliated with high-ranking Russian mobster failson Didi Kolisnik (Maximillian Osinski). Having developed a close bond with the Garcias in his post-military years, Levon is forced to tap into his old set of skills and wage a one-man crusade to bring Jenny home.
Early in the credits, a name caught me by surprise: Sylvester Stallone. He originally developed the project as a TV show and co-wrote the film with Ayer. As I watched the film, his involvement made complete sense—it’s exactly the type of movie he would have made in his heyday.
A veteran reckoning with his past and finding renewed purpose by using his skills once more on a vigilante rescue mission? A Working Man is essentially a Rambo sequel crossed with Taken. In fact, Stallone’s Rambo: Last Blood featured a nearly identical premise—just swap the Russian mob for a Mexican cartel. Thankfully, A Working Man avoids Last Blood’s more racially problematic elements. The story moves through the motions but gets from point A to point B efficiently enough.
“A Working Man is essentially a Rambo sequel crossed with Taken.”
Emmett J. Scanlan and Eve Mauro give effective performances, making the traffickers as despicable as possible (not that it’s a tough sell), and you spend the movie waiting for Levon to get his hands on them—and anyone else in his way. As for Levon, he’s your standard Statham protagonist: a quiet, brooding super-badass with a rough past who mutters the occasional quip between ass-kickings—only this time, he does it in a plaid jacket and trucker hat rather than a three-piece suit.
Levon does have a friend in the form of blind war buddy Gunny (David Harbour), but their scenes together don’t amount to much beyond Gunny being Levon’s weapons specialist and moral rationale for getting back into action. The scenes between Levon and his daughter are fine enough, but it’s ironic how I felt a deeper bond between him and the Garcias in less screen time than between him and his actual daughter—but that’s the point.
“At the end of the day, your feelings on A Working Man will depend entirely on if you’re still a fan of Statham’s brand of action.”
The problem is that as Statham kills his way through the underworld, a tonal disconnect begins to emerge. The Russian mob start sending increasingly cartoonish characters to capture Levon – a pair of obnoxious tracksuit-wearing brothers and another Russian duo who look like Bulk and Skull from Power Rangers if you gave them a pair of light machine guns. They’re fun characters when they’re on screen, but they feel more like they belong in The Beekeeper than here.
It doesn’t help that several of them exit the film as quickly as they arrive, as there’s never a moment where Statham doesn’t have the upper hand. Even when he’s captured, he frees himself less than a minute later. Of course, it’s hard to argue against that when Statham’s whole appeal is being an unstoppable force, and it’s no less satisfying to watch him take out these villains with maximum ease—especially during the explosive final shootout.
At the end of the day, your feelings on A Working Man will depend entirely on if you’re still a fan of Statham’s brand of action. It’s lacking a distinct identity in the way his best films generally have, but as far as a well-crafted, meat-and-potatoes action film goes? A Working Man gets the job done.
