116 min | R | March 28, 2025 | Amazon MGM Studios
Jason Statham plays a construction worker with a lethal past forced back into action. David Ayer directs. The formula is familiar but the execution is solid.
Revenge thrillers about ex-soldiers or spies pulled back into violence are a genre unto themselves. Taken codified the template. Dozens of films have followed. A Working Man understands the formula and executes it with workmanlike efficiency. Levon is a construction worker trying to live clean. His boss’s daughter gets kidnapped by human traffickers. He goes to war. The beats are predictable. The film delivers them without apology.
Jason Statham plays Levon with the same gruff competence he brings to every action role. He is not stretching. He does not need to. Statham understands his lane and stays in it. The man is a professional. Michael Peña and David Harbour provide solid support as Levon’s former team members. The kidnappers are faceless and disposable. The film does not ask you to understand their motivations or care about their fates.
David Ayer directed Fury and End of Watch, two films that understood how to find humanity in violence. He also directed Suicide Squad and Bright, two films that demonstrated what happens when studio interference destroys vision. This one falls somewhere in the middle. The action is brutal and clearly staged. The emotional beats are functional. The script adapted from Chuck Dixon’s novel hits the expected notes without finding anything fresh.
Sylvester Stallone wrote and produced. You can feel his influence in the blue-collar revenge fantasy and the valorization of working-class violence. The film is competent genre work that delivers what it promises. Nothing more. Nothing less.