A WORKING MAN

Whenever a new Jason Statham action movie comes out, there's always one particular thing I look out for; what occupation he will have before getting into all sorts of violent shenanigans. Remember when he was actually a beekeeper in The Beekeeper? I mean, nothing will ever top that for me but in A Working Man, his journey from construction worker to a war against the Russian mafia is just as ludicrous.

Levon Cade (Jason Statham) left behind a decorated military career in the black ops to live a simple life of working construction. However, when human traffickers kidnap his boss's daughter, his search to bring her home uncovers a world of corruption far greater than he ever could have imagined.

Working with David Ayer again after The Beekeeper, which was surprisingly rather good, it's so disappointing to see A Working Man be an uninspired action movie helmed by Ayer. After a bad run of films, it was great to see Ayer have some fun with his previous film but this is just a reminder that, more often than not, he delivers quite awful films. Co-written with Sylvester Stallone(!), the film is full of laughable dialogue that you actually get the impression from they feel they were writing some deep piece of cinema here. Let's not even talk about the most one-note stereotypical characters littered throughout the film because not one is even worth mentioning.

Now, dont get me wrong, people will be watching this to see Statham kill a load of people for two hours. Sure, it delivers that however, it's just in such mundane fashion. There's a few moments where brutal violence matched with comedy really do work but, for the most part, the action is cut to crap in the editing room with the camera far too close to the action sometimes. It gets to the point where it's all just noise.

As for Jason Statham, this is the kind of role he can do with his eyes closed. It's a testament to the physicality he brings to the film, yet any form of emotion he is suppose to evoke is thrown out the window by the lack of dramatic tones he can deliver. Statham is a weird one because, sometimes you may watch a film of his and think it's easy to see how he became a big action star however, films like this just make you think how that was even possible in the first place. Seriously, this just isn't it.

Obviously this film ends in a way to bait a sequel but it'll be a surprise if that actually happens. The Beekeeper deserves a sequel. This does not. Action movies deserve to be better than this.

Verdict: ★½