A Working Man (2025)

A Working Man arrives with the grim efficiency of a man punching a clock, which is fitting, since its hero spends the opening act supervising a construction site. Jason Statham plays Levon Cade, an ex-Royal Marine with a haunted past and a talent for drowning Russian mobsters in their own pools. David Ayer directs with his customary interest in men who have seen things. Sylvester Stallone co-wrote the script, which may explain the fondness for a good-natured brute who wants nothing more than breakfast with his daughter. The plot involves human traffickers, a kidnapped girl, and a conspiracy reaching from Chicago to the Bratva. It is not subtle. It is not trying to be.

On the matter of social consciousness, the film is close to a blank slate, and it seems content there. The Garcia family, who employ Levon, are Latino, and a few Black performers fill supporting roles, but their presence is the texture of a working-class Chicago. It carries no argument and invites no comment. Race never becomes a subject. Neither does anything else. The villains are Russian because the novel said so, not because the film holds a thesis about geopolitics. There is no environmental sermon, no economic critique, no body-positive subplot, no lecture on how to live. Jenny, the captive, gets one satisfying moment when she snaps a trafficker's neck. It is the closest the film comes to a statement, and it passes in two seconds.

Levon's post-traumatic stress is handled as grit, a reason for brooding silences, not an invitation to discuss mental health. We are left with a two-hour bruiser that hits its marks and goes home. It topped the box office for a single weekend, collected mixed notices, and will be forgotten by summer. There are worse fates. There are also better films.