Jason Statham in David Ayer’s Actioner

Things aren’t going very well for Jason Statham’s character in the actor’s new action vehicle. He’s sleeping in his car, desperately in need of funds for the legal fees necessary to secure custody of his young daughter (Isla Gie) from her grandfather. And although he has a solid job as a construction foreman, trouble always seems to come his way, as when he’s forced to reveal his tremendous fighting skills when a gang of toughs show up to threaten one of his workers.

“You didn’t see anything,” he tells his boss’ daughter Jenny (Arrianna Rivas) after she witnesses him in action and guesses correctly that he’s no mere working man, despite the film’s title.  

Not long afterward, Jenny goes to a local bar and winds up missing. Her distraught parents (Michael Peña, Noemi Gonzalez), aware of their employee’s elite military past, beg him to find her.

“It’s not who I am anymore,” he says solemnly.

Wanna bet?

Statham reunites with director David Ayer after their last hit together, The Beekeeper, for this formulaic but effective actioner that might well have starred Sylvester Stallone decades ago (sorry, Sly, but the years are marching on). But Stallone still has his hand in, co-writing the screenplay based on Chuck Dixon’s book Levon’s Trade and serving as one of the film’s producers. The book was the first of a series revolving around Levon Cade (a perfect name for an action hero), a former black-ops soldier using his well-honed skills for vigilante justice. With Statham’s casting, the character has become British but no less lethal.

Needless to say, Cade immediately taps into his inner badass and insinuates himself into Chicago’s criminal underworld by pretending to be a drug dealer in order to find Jenny, who has apparently been stolen by a human-trafficking wing operated by the Russian mob. He begins by waterboarding his first suspect, so you know that he learned those military lessons well.

A series of nasty confrontations ensues, with Cade barely mussing his hair — well, scalp — while encountering one bad guy after another, most of whom meet gruesomely violent, untimely ends (which are deserved, if for nothing else than their propensity to dress like ‘90s-era rock stars). These include Russian crime lord Wolo, exuberantly played by Statham’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels co-star Jason Flemyng, who even manages to snarl in Russian; his flamboyant son Didi (Maximilian Osinski); Didi’s loyal underlings Viper and Artemis (Emmet J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro); and drug dealer Dutch (Chidi Ajufo), who speaks softly but is very, very large.

It all plays out exactly as you’d expect, with the never-flustered Cade prefacing one brawl with half-a-dozen bad guys by announcing “Let’s play.” In one of the film’s best fight scenes, he battles two goons in the back of a van with his hands tied. No points for guessing who walks out alive.

After such films as End of Watch, Fury, and Suicide Squad, director/co-screenwriter Ayer has well-established macho cinematic credentials that permeate A Working Man like dripping testosterone. This is also thanks, of course, to his leading man, who barely breaks a sweat and usually has a low-key quip ready when needed. Statham’s simmering charisma is on ample display here, and if he never quite convinces as an average Joe, he’s more than convincing as someone a bad guy should never want to see coming.

The film feels overlong at nearly two hours, with repetitiveness settling in early. But it does have its enjoyable eccentric touches, several of which smack of Stallone, who often infuses his portrayals with subtle humor. The most distinctive character turns out to be Gunny (played by David Harbour in his terrific Harbour-esque way), Cade’s former military colleague who doesn’t let his blindness prevent him from doing such things as shooting arrows. He also provides Cade with an array of formidable guns, cheekily describing himself as a “weapon sommelier.”

The female characters are refreshingly dynamic as well, including Cade’s young daughter, who seems more than cool with her father’s escapades as long as he returns safely, and kidnap victim Jenny, who proves fully capable of turning the tables on her tormentors.