Warner Bros.
I grew up on Norris, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and that generation of action stars.
Gratuitous violence mixed with a little humor as the good guy cuts his way through the bad guys, to eventually win the boss fight, rescue the damsel/child/family member.
What’s the key phrase there? Mixed with a little humor…
Jason Statham’s A Working Man is missing the key ingredient.
This is a humorless action movie that fails in several ways. First, there is no humor whatsoever. No quips from the hero (Statham). No accidental humorous deaths. No over the top cartoonish bad guys. No brash verbal sparring between the damsel/child/family member and their oppressor.
Second, an action movie needs… you know, ACTION!
Of course there’s some action, but in a two-hour film, it wasn’t remotely enough. With Statham you must give the audience both great hand to hand, to highlight his martial arts prowess and firearms, because he almost always plays some former special operator dragged back into the life of violence, even though he’s tried so hard to put it behind him.
Last, we must have a memorable antagonist. This film, doesn’t. Non-specific eastern European gangsters are not going to be enough, unless you make them worth remembering. The family structure of the bad guys was confusing, and aside from a couple of brothers that dressed in couture, they all could have been played by the same actor and it would have been hard to notice the difference. At least the couture brothers tried to be funny.
They failed, but they tried.
The film’s premise works fine. Michael Peña owns a construction company.
He has a beautiful daughter. She goes out clubbing and winds up a human trafficking target. If it sounds familiar, it’s the plot of Taken. “But David, Taken has 0 humor too.”
Fair point, but it puts you on the edge of your seat and keeps you there for the entire film. Also, Liam Neeson’s dialogue is SO menacing! It didn’t need to be funny.
Then we have the bizarre hesitancy for the hero to return to the life of violence.
Michael Peña’s family had become Jason Statham’s family. It’s clear there is an enormous amount of affection between them. Instead of immediately leaping into action to get Jenny back, he goes to his former gunnery sergeant, David Harbour, to sort of ask for permission to bring the pain. It’s unnecessary. Also, David Harbour is funny and huge. Have him in the movie, definitely, but USE him! He barely has a role in this film and that’s disappointing.
I can almost copy and paste the previous paragraph and substitute the name Michael Peña. Michael Peña is FUNNY. He’s not huge, so it isn’t like he can throw people around believably, like David Harbour, but Michael Peña has 99 acting credits and more of his films are action than aren’t. Don’t think he’s funny? Watch Ant Man. He’s hilarious. Unfortunately, in this, his role is super limiting. He’s the grieving father, wringing his hands, hoping to get his daughter back.
Our damsel in distress is Jenny, played ably and professionally by Arianna Rivas. She has relatively few credits, but she’s beautiful and can definitely act, so we’ll likely see her a lot more. She has an upcoming horror sequel and not much else, so hopefully she’ll get a role she can actually sink her teeth into soon.
There aren’t really any other stars, or characters of consequence. A couple of the bad guys are recognizable “that guys” from other similar films, but no one worth talking about and unfortunately for them, they didn’t have a lot to work with.
David Ayer is a solid director. He also directed Statham in The Beekeeper, which, as I shared with you, was great. It literally had everything this film doesn’t. Ayer’s directing filmography is strong, so, aside from some of the lighting choices, I don’t really have a problem with his directing here. I think he was hamstrung by a sub-standard script. Should he have demanded it be punched up? He has a writing credit on the film, so I guess he tried.
The film is written and produced by Sylvester Stallone. Stallone is an Oscar nominated screenwriter, but that was close to 50 years ago.
The primary author is Chuck Dixon. You know why?
Chuck Dixon CREATED the character and has written 10 books about him. Is it possible with the success Lee Child’s Jack Reacher has reached, we’re going to see a number of same genre series adaptations. Maybe we’ll see this character again and it will be great, but this one doesn’t work.
I think we identified the real issue with this film. Adaptations of novels are really hard. All medium transfers are. Dixon, a longtime comic book writer has NO credited experience adapting novels for the screen and a fairly unimpressive screen credits period. He has, however, successfully published 10 books about this character and that’s incredibly impressive. Be that as it may, I think Stallone should have hired someone with strong adaptation experience to write the script.
If it’s a rainy Saturday and this is available for free from one of your streaming services, go ahead and give it a watch. You’ll feel for the victim. You’ll see Jason Statham kick a moderate amount of ass.
You’ll kill a couple of hours.
2 out of 5 stars
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