I guess that’s what he is (Credit: Dan Smith/© 2025 Amazon Content Services LLC. All Rights Reserved.)

Starring: Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Arianna Rivas, Michael Peña, David Harbour, Noemi Gonzalez, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Maximilian Osinski, Max Croes, Kristina Poli, Andrej Kaminsky, Isla Gie, Alana Boden

Director: David Ayer

Running Time: 116 Minutes

Rating: R for Big Guns, Small Guns, and Even a Few Medium Guns

Release Date: March 28, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Levon Cade is just trying to live a peaceful life as a construction worker in Chicago. But when his boss Joe’s (Michael Peña) daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) is kidnapped, he’s forced to revisit a side of himself he swore that he’d abandoned for good. There’s one actor who’s been specializing in characters like this more than anybody else the past 20 years or so, and once again Jason Statham is indeed in his sweet spot. (If you guessed Liam Neeson instead, I would argue that his ass-kicking characters are generally less ambivalent about getting violent than Statham’s.) Anyway, Jenny is now in the hands of human traffickers within the Russian mafia, who are certainly a formidable adversary. But to reiterate: Cade is a one-man wrecking crew played by Jason Statham.

What Made an Impression?: Destruction/Efficiency Dilemma: Lately, I find myself bemoaning the extreme measures of ultra-violent action flicks more and more, and I have to ask, “Did I change, or did the movies?” Then I remember that I never used to watch this genre all that much when I was younger. So the most likely answer is that neither of us changed, we just got to know each other. Anyway, I’m not trying to say that A Working Man and its ilk cause real-life violence, because I genuinely don’t believe that that’s the case (at least not in a direct one-to-one correlation). But after having my eyeballs treated to a series of gaping gunshot wounds, I can \ repeat to myself “It’s just a movie” only so often before it becomes too exhausting to handle. At least David Ayer and Sylvester Stallone’s script is a little quippier than the typical Statham actioner. It’s still a blunt force instrument, but it’s got enough self-awareness for me to appreciate it.
The Shakedown: Cade has a couple of vulnerabilities in the form of a tween daughter named Merry (Isla Gie) and a father-in-law who hates him because he blames him for the death of Merry’s mom. You might expect that the Russians would target Cade’s family to try to make him desperate, and they certainly do, but it thankfully doesn’t get as traumatic as it could. But anyway, I don’t really want to focus on all that right now. Instead, I want to mention how great a relationship Merry and her dad have, and how nice it is that he’s able to keep his PTSD in check whenever he’s around her, and also there’s an early scene where they go out for a lunch of burgers and milkshakes. We don’t see them actually downing any of that greasy grub, but it nonetheless looked delicious to the point that it had me eagerly anticipating my own first milkshake of 2025 once the weather gets warm enough. And I’m grateful for that! Most bloody action flicks don’t bother to include shots of delicious sweet treats, nor do they shoot them so lovingly as they are here. But A Working Man went above and beyond.

A Working Man is Recommended If You Like: All the other Jason Stathams. This one’s a lot like those.

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Shotgun Blasts