'A Working Man Works' Well with its Conventions
David Ayer and Jason Statham make a good team. Together, they have made The Beekeeper and now A Working Man with a little bit of help from Sylvester Stallone as a screenwriter on the project. A Working Man is a clichéd one-liner B-grade movie, and there's nothing wrong with that. Jason Statham acts as an avenging angel, where he battles all the deplorable bastards that exist in the world. In The Beekeeper, JS beat, burned, and tortured scam callers. In this film, Statham executes an underground mafia that sex-trafficks young women. The violence in the film is cathartic payback. If only it were executed a little better.
The beatdowns in this movie have terrible coordination. The camera cuts frantically, while the shot is shaky, like a Paul Greengrass film. It's hard to make out what's going on when the director obscures the viewer's senses. The action in the film would have been a blast if David Ayer knew how to keep the camera still and not cut shots to hide the fact that nobody's really hitting each other. It's understandable why David Ayer does that. Take, for instance, The Dark Knight Rises. There are fights where you see stunt performers fake falling on their backs, although they didn't get hit by anyone. It's inadvertently hilarious. Especially the climactic fight between the police and Bane's goons, where everyone looks like they're fake fighting. However, some of the action in that film is fantastic.
When Bane beats Batman, the stunt choreography is beautifully done. So why does Ayer cut so much? Show off the skills everyone learned from the intensive fight choreography training done for the film. Shooting your movie like a Jason Bourne flick takes the viewer out of the action because it's not showing off what it could. Take some notes from The Matrix's Wachowskis on how a fight should look.
A Working Man could be defined as a knockoff of Taken. Both films revolve around sex trafficking. For Liam Neeson, it was his daughter who was abducted. In this film, it's Levon's co-worker whose daughter must be saved. On the outside, Levon Cade(Jason Statham) is just another poor construction worker who lives in his car. But before that, he was in the UK as a highly skilled special forces soldier that you never want to piss off. The Russian sex traffickers in this film will wish they had never abducted Arianna Rivas (Jenny Garcia) once they meet Levon.
Minus the poorly executed action scenes, A Working Man is a B movie done on an AAA budget that knows it's silly, and God bless it for it. When Jason Statham gets into his first encounter in the movie, the camera pushes in on his face making the viewer aware that some thugs screwed with the wrong guy. It's a corny moment that is intentionally funny. As are many others in the film. At one point, one mafia boss says to Levon Cade, "You're not a cop; you're a working man." The critics sitting next to me, including myself, couldn't help but bust out laughing during that line, as it's supposed to be cheesy. The film is entirely self-aware, which makes it all the more fun to watch.
Can a movie only rely on goofy one-liners mixed with action? It all depends on how well it's executed. If the action weren't so sloppily done, I'd give the film a higher rating. Jason Statham films are a callback to the golden age of action movies. It's the type of film Arnold Schwarzenegger would be in. Sometimes, mindless entertainment can be fun.
I would like to see one element of these Jason Statham films changed. Stathum, like Steven Seagal, is practically invincible. He's never hurt or vulnerable. He comes out of each action scene with hardly a scratch on him. It's not so exciting to see someone go on a rampage unless there's a sense of danger. Why can't Levon be stabbed, shot, or captured? The most heroic figure in films and television is someone brave enough to handle excruciating pain. Like in Daredevil, Matt Murdock is beaten to no end. Yet he never lets physical injuries stop him. He patches himself up and moves forward. Levon Cade doesn't experience any real pain in this film, which takes away a lot of the stakes. For once, I'd like to see Jason Statham stuck in a situation where we question if he can get out of it. It would make the story way more exciting.
There's nothing about A Working Man that separates it from other Jason Statham action vehicles other than the fact that Sly Stallone himself helped pen the screenplay. Even with its lack of any real threat and choppy action scenes, the film is a great deal of fun. It plays with each convention you'd see in any action flick to a tee. The film just asks that you turn your brain off and bask in the glory of watching bad men get killed. There's a darkness in our humanity where we like to see a "bad guy" get what's coming to him. Why do we like watching people in pain so much? Maybe it's because terrorists like the ones in this movie have hurt us. The film is a blast to see with friends. It’s intentional, corny dialog and Staham's charisma as a tough guy keep audiences hooked to this day.
The picture could be described as a generic action film. Yet there's an endearing charm with these flicks that harkens back to the old days of action movies that make it so much more than that. It's a grand movie to share with your friends. Together, you'll laugh at the right times but also at the wrong ones. Wait until you see the ridiculous full moon shot. A Working Man is a mixed bag that, beneath its flaws, is entertaining. And isn't that half the reason why we go to the movies in the first place?
