‘A Working Man’ Review: Revenge Served Dead Behind the Eyes

Jason Statham’s Levon Cade isn’t only a easy “working man.” Positive, he’s placing in the sweat fairness as a foreman at his pal Joe’s (Michael Peña) development firm, however it’s not lengthy into David Ayer’s movie earlier than we study of his previous as a extremely skilled and embellished member of the British navy. Filled with close-ups of bullets, canine tags, helmets, and British and American flags, the opening credit serve up a barrage of photos of navy fetishization, just for the movie to depart us with the realization that Levon’s service was underappreciated.

Not solely is Levon blamed by his wealthy ex-father-in-law (Richard Heap) for the loss of life of his mom—she dedicated suicide whereas he was serving abroad—however his attorneys counsel that his untreated PTSD will make it tough for him to get custody of his daughter (Isla Gie). The notion of a veteran compelled to confront such challenges seems to be organising some type of emotional payoff, however as soon as it’s revealed that Joe’s daughter (Arianna Rivas) has been compelled right into a sex-trafficking ring, thus kicking a quest for vengeance into movement, our hero’s familial turmoil and the weight of his previous are nearly fully sidelined for the remainder of the movie.

As a substitute of grappling with Levon’s PTSD, A Working Man views it as one thing of a superpower that helps him navigate an underworld of drug sellers and intercourse traffickers. It’s a cop-out that smooths the edges off the character, because it reduces him to only one other run-of-the-mill avenging angel. The person’s wartime expertise clearly colours the occasions of the movie, as in a scene the place Levon waterboards a Russian mobster, however the movie is much less all for presenting his actions as proof of his lingering psychological anguish than it’s in celebrating his vigilantism.

A Working Man, tailored by Ayer and Sylvester Stallone from Chuck Dixon’s novel Levon’s Commerce, fails to supply something that enables it to differentiate itself in the crowded style of revenge movies moreover its retrograde politics. At occasions, the quantity of enemies that Levon has to take care of without delay, as in a single scene the place he takes on practically a dozen foes in a drug den, brings to thoughts a John Wick movie. However the motion is so usually edited to items that you just lose the sense of spatial continuity and coherence that makes the fight in Chad Stahelski’s collection so visceral.

Right here and there, and for the higher, the movie flirts with camp. Demi (Maximilian Osinski), son of Russian oligarch Wolo (Jason Felmyng), is at one level dressed like a British mod, whereas two of his goons (Greg Kolpakchi and Piotr Witkowski) usually put on comparable paisley tracksuits. Elsewhere, one other bruiser (Ricky Champ), along with his bald head and ridiculous black outfit, seems to be eerily just like a thinner model of Baron Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies. However that aptitude in the costuming doesn’t spill over into the remainder of the movie, which stays frustratingly dour and monotonous whilst its overstuffed plot turns into increasingly ridiculous.

Flashes of humor break up the doldrums, as when Levon punches Wolo in the face earlier than then toasting and consuming a bagel in entrance of him. However such moments are few and much between, and shortly drowned out by A Working Man’s self-seriousness and mind-numbing celebration of a sort of mentality that sees issues like PTSD as weaknesses to be solid apart. That isn’t to counsel that brawny meatheads like Levon don’t have their place in motion cinema, however when a movie is as lifeless behind the eyes as its protagonist, that’s a tough barrier for audiences to beat.