The Dark Herald Recommends: A Working Man

”Give me the same thing but different.” This has been the battle cry of Hollywood producers since the Great Train Robbery.  I have no doubt at all that Shogun was pitched as, “It’s like A Game of Thrones… BUT WITH SAMURAI!!!”

In A Working Man’s case I would lay good odds it was run up the flagpole as a blue collar (and therefore less expensive) John Wick.  And if wasn’t, then it should have been because that’s what Ayers and Statham delivered. 

This movie is an adrenaline drenched, pulse pounder that pulverizes the screen with high speed action. Jason Statham brings his strong silent, grey-man charisma to bear on a part that seems tailor made for him.  David Ayers brilliant direction and pacing keeps this action film tight but finds time for us to get to know the simple man hero of Levon Cade, without derailing a bullet train of a film. Sylvestor Stallone has been writing hard men with a heart of gold scripts since I was a boy running circles around the school yard with my hoodie up, throwing jabs and crosses. All of this was built on a foundation crafted by one of the greatest action storytellers in last one hundred years, The Legend, Chuck Dixon.

Light ***spoilers*** ahead:

The first two thirds of the motion picture follows all the major plot points from the book Levon’s Trade by Chuck Dixon. The third act does vary significantly. 

The film opens in current year Chicago.  Levon Cade is a blue collar foreman on a high rise construction crew.  He worries about his crew’s safety and is established as a caring and natural leader.  He also proves himself to be a protective leader when one of his men starts getting tuned up by some Mexican Mafia guys who show up on his work site to do it. He beats the living shit out of them in a very Jason Statham way - while also cooling the situation down again. The message was delivered, beating one his guys on his site was very disrespectful and he is someone who needs to be respected.

Levon’s construction company is owned by the Garcia family.  Film is a much different medium than the written novel.  Brevity and economy of storytelling are paramount, especially in the action genre. His relationship with his boss’ family is shown to be much closer than it was in the novel.  It gives Levon a more personal stake in the matter when their daughter is kidnapped. 

He still wants to keep out of it because he wanted to start a quiet life after having been a high speed operator in the Marine Corps who appears to have cross dececked into Delta. 

The girl’s kidnapper is Dimi, the son of an important Russian Mafia don but who is himself too much of a degenerate to become a Made Man.  Dimi’s businesses are drugs and high dollar-bespoke human trafficking. 

Once Levon starts his relentless pursuit he is a bloodhound that leaves a trail of blood behind him wherever he goes. And he doesn’t care who he has to go through or what devastation he will leave in his wake to complete his mission.

This film’s primary strength are it’s action scenes.  Jason Statham’s physicality is damn near superhuman.  He is still giving his audiences the same dynamic, hyper violent, intense fight scenes that he was twenty years go.  However, with time has come seasoning.  He is truthfully much better at the art of acting today than when he first started out in Guy Ritchie’s South London gangster movies.  He’s been in the business a long time and while he does the strong-silent type, he never lets you forget the man who just wants to be the best Dad he can be beneath.

The supporting cast was unusually strong.  This was not a film where the actors phoned it in and collected a paycheck. While I don’t like the guy personally I’ll give credit to David Harbour for his performance as Gunny Lefferty, a very pivotal character from the book.  I wish there had been more of Jason Flemyng’s Wolo. Truthfully it felt a little cut short.

That is I’m afraid that is this movie’s one downside.  The main plot was flawlessly delivered. However, some of the side stories were dropped prematurely or were narratively underdeveloped. Given that the runtime was exactly 1 hour and 59 minutes you can tell that David Ayer was getting the thumbscrews put to him deliver a film that did NOT go over two hours.  

This did tighten the action and kept the main plot moving. 

While most of the characters from the book are present, Levon Cade’s  enemies are much more hyper-stylized, rather than the grounded mobsters that Chuck Dixon created.  But remember this thing was sold to MGM as ‘John Wick but different,’ that predicated more flamboyant villains.  The movie does not suffer for this.  Indeed, it plays to both Ayers and Statham’s strengths.

I need to say something nice about the Cinematography here. Shawn White did a brilliant job managing the background and using it to enhance the scenes that supporting the rising tensions until it reached the crescendo of it’s climax.

And A Working Man does have a much more cinematic climax than the book did.  The third act is completely different from the novel but keep in mind a film is a much different medium for storytelling. The novel’s third act simply isn’t suportable on the big screen. At the end of the day Chuck Dixon’s story was told and told well. The box office tally strongly supports this assessment.

A Working Man with a modest budget of $45 million beat Disney’s Snow White (with a budget of god only knows) this weekend at the Box Office.  Counter programming isn’t supposed to beat the designated winner.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work. In 2008 there was a ridiculous little rom-com called Mamma Mia that went head-to-head with Dark Knight and won.  Don’t get me wrong it didn’t make more money, the second of the Nolan’s Batman movies made $830 million. However, Mamma Mia came in at north of $225 million.  It shouldn’t have done anywhere near that well but it did because women going to the theater didn’t want to sit through a Batman movie.

Ayer’s and Statham’s latest outing was supposed to give the boys something to do while the girls were watching Snow Whitish for the second time. Nobody’s watching that turkey again.

From this perspective I can’t help but wonder if A Working Man would have done better if Snow White had done better.  Regardless, Statham has a new franchise, Ayers has a new moneymaker under his belt, and The Legend Chuck Dixon finally got a decent movie of one his stories made.  This is a film with some serious replay value, so it’s worth seeing the theater more than once. 

The Dark Herald Recommends with Enthusiasm (4.5 / 5)