Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (June 11, 2025)
Over his nearly 30 years in movies, Jason Statham has developed what we’ll call the “Jason Statham Character”: an immensely skilled former agent of some sort who just wants peace but who gets pulled back into the ways of violence. For yet another example of this mini-genre, we go to 2025’s A Working Man.
Former Royal Marine Commando Levon Cade (Statham) now seeks a quiet life. Based in Chicago, he works construction and attempts to act as a good father to his daughter Merry (Isla Gie).
When his boss Joe Garcia’s (Michael Peña) 19-year-old daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) disappears, Levon reluctantly employs his particular skill set to find her. As he looks for Jenny, Levon encounters a parade of criminal sorts.
When it ran theatrically, a friend and I saw Working Man. I wanted to see Mickey 17 but she preferred this one.
This surprised me because my friend never demonstrated much interest in big violent action flicks. She probably thinks Statham is hot, so we got tickets to Working Man.
We both regretted the decision.
Part of the issue stems from the monotony of the film. As implied at the start of this review, Statham plays the same character again and again.
Inevitably, this means the various movies tend to blend into one. It becomes awfully difficult to find much to differentiate Levon from a bunch of other roles played by Statham.
And he seems bored. Statham does the same old same old so often that he can’t find anything fresh to bring to Levon, and the lack of challenge involved in the part becomes apparent as he sleepwalks through his performance.
As noted, Working Man exists as Yet Another Jason Statham Movie where he plays the loner with the violent past who possesses phenomenal fighting skills and goes on a crusade to save someone and right wrongs. Nothing unusual or surprising materializes along the way.
Actually, I take that back. Even for its genre, Working Man seems unusually and surprisingly awkward and clumsy.
Even by Yet Another Jason Statham Movie standards, Working Man seems awful. Really, really awful.
Too much of the time, the film becomes a bad combination of stupid and boring. The fight choreography seems poorly shot and choppy, and the "story" rarely becomes coherent.
For instance, when Joe and wife Carla (Noemi Gonzalez) practically beg Levon to rescue Jenny, he declines. Levon solemnly declares that he’s “not that person anymore”.
And then boom! For no obvious reason whatsoever, Levon changes his mind.
Did co-writer/director David Ayer cut a scene that would explain this flip-flop? We do see Levon visit his old military colleague Gunny (David Harbour) to discuss the case, but this offers zero explanation why Levon reconsidered his plans.
Large chunks of the movie continue to display an absence of logic or narrative fluidity. Though the flick should offer a simple plot, the screenplay from Ayer and Sylvester Stallone bops from character to character and situation to situation without much clarity.
If it boasted good action scenes, I could forgive Working Man some of these sins. However, as noted, the fights lack power and seem poorly shot and edited.
Perhaps this occurs to hide a decline in Statham’s physical abilities. I don’t intend that as some ageist slam, as Statham and I are virtually the same age.
And I couldn’t execute fancy fight scenes – that’s for certain. Time comes for all of us, and given Statham was 57 during the shoot, it’s not a sin to think he lacks the stunt capabilities he boasted as a younger guy.
Still, the story requires Levon to be an ultimate badass regardless of age, not just a relative badass nearly 60-year-old. Maybe Statham still can pull off the stunts and Ayer simply made poor choices, but I must imagine Ayer filmed and cut the fights to hide the actor’s limitations.
Whatever the case, Working Man winds up as a thoroughly awful stab at an action flick. About halfway through 2025, this one stands high on a list of candidates as the worst movie of the year.
