Final 12 months Jason Statham and David Ayer teamed up for The Beekeeper — a film that was dubbed “torturous” by critics , however was really a reasonably enjoyable expertise, particularly if bee puns are your factor. Whereas followers are possible excited that The Beekeeper 2 is going on, the even-better information is that we don’t have to attend that lengthy to see Statham and Ayer’s subsequent mission. In reality, A Working Man is hitting the 2025 film calendar quickly, so let’s see what critics take into consideration this one.
This upcoming motion movie has a well-known premise: Ex-Royal Marines commander Levon Cade (Statham) is compelled to dip again into his outdated methods when his boss’ teenage daughter is taken by human traffickers. It sounds just like the movie may hit the identical notes as Statham’s 2024 providing, however in CinemaBlend’s overview of A Working Man, Eric Eisenberg says it fails to seize that very same enjoyable power. He offers it 2 out of 5 stars, writing:
It operates with the very same hero arc [as The Beekeeper] nevertheless it’s delivered this time with out the power. It’s a rote film via and thru constructed on tropes and lazy plotting, and until you’re an excessive Statham apologist who merely loves it each time he’s on display screen punching dudes, you’re not going to search out a lot of something to understand.
Derek Smith of SlashFilm offers the film 1.5 out of 5 stars, saying Jason Statham’s protagonist is useless behind the eyes, together with his untreated PTSD serving extra as a superpower to help his vigilantism than lingering psychological anguish. Smith additionally says:
A Working Man fails to supply something that enables it to tell apart itself within the crowded style of revenge movies moreover its retrograde politics. At instances, the quantity of enemies that Levon has to take care of without delay, as in a single scene the place he takes on almost 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.
Brianna Zigler of AV Membership offers A Working Man a D, calling it “a largely tiresome motion flick that may’t overcome the pedestrian trappings of its filmmakers’ personal banality.” Zigler writes:
Like The Beekeeper, the movie suffers from the identical case of dreary tedium which spoils any enjoyment—though, The Beekeeper definitely had extra buoyancy in its tone. A Working Man is as dingy and darkish as its cinematography. Although these visuals definitely match the content material of the movie, there isn’t almost sufficient going for it elsewhere to make up for it. There’s a whole lack of stakes.
Jeremy Mathai of SlashFilm acknowledges that there’s positively room for empty calorie leisure in our film theaters, however whereas we’re craving the silliness that Ayer and Statham’s earlier outing offered, A Working Man is merely a pale imitation of higher films we have seen earlier than. Mathai offers it 5 out 10 and says:
Regardless of all this goofy potential, nevertheless, A Working Man cannot fairly set up itself as a contender to the crown of junk meals cinema. The place The Beekeeper had the good thing about a hilariously over-the-top premise and a heightened tone to match, this newest Statham car struggles mightily to recapture that very same magic and finally delivers far much less spectacular outcomes than hoped for.
For Invoice Bria of Discussing Movie, nevertheless, A Working Man is a stable product, due to Jason Statham and David Ayer proving but once more that collectively they’re a system for nice motion cinema. Bria charges the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and says:
The confirmed narrative and its characters are robust sufficient to hold A Working Man all the best way to quitting time, after which some. As any working man will let you know, getting a job finished proper all hinges on hiring essentially the most dependable folks, and the group of Jason Statham and David Ayer is more and more turning into a reliable one. The 2 appear to carry out the most effective in one another, and that could be as a result of they’re, individually, two of essentially the most constant folks in motion movies nonetheless working immediately.
It appears like in case you’re headed to the theater hoping for extra of the B-movie enjoyable (no pun meant) of The Beekeeper, you is perhaps disillusioned at A Working Man’s extra severe tone. But when it’s Jason Statham kicking ass you’re going for, I feel we all know that he can ship. Catch his newest movie in theaters beginning Friday, March 28.