Action movie icon Jason Statham continues to fly the flag for no-nonsense, bullet-dodging, fist-throwing thrillers, with one of the actor and martial artist’s most recent efforts working hard to dominate streaming despite a deeply divisive critical reaction. The Stath has now become one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, and it’s all thanks to him knowing exactly what he’s good at and working hard to deliver it consistently. And, evidently, it works incredibly well.
Released last year, Jason Statham does what he does best as he takes elements from modern action movie masterpieces John Wick and Taken and smashes them together to form A Working Man. The latest streaming win from Statham finds the popular A-lister taking the lead once again as a mysterious man with an even more mysterious, violent past who must put his particular set of skills to good use when a young girl is kidnapped.
Audiences Flock to See Jason Statham Take Revenge on Human Traffickers
Reuniting Statham with The Beekeeper’s David Ayer, who works from a script written by Statham’s Expendables co-star and fellow genre legend Sylvester Stallone, and based on the 2014 novel “Levon’s Trade” by Chuck Dixon, A Working Man features an all-star cast that includes David Harbour (Stranger Things), Michael Peña (End of Watch), Arianna Rivas (The Black Phone 2), and Jason Flemyng (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels).
Taking the skills of Baba Yaga and applying them to a Taken-esque plot in which Statham’s Levon Cade, a mysterious man who is drawn back into action when his boss’s daughter is taken by human traffickers, sounds like the easiest slam dunk in action cinema history. And in many ways, it was, with A Working Man now climbing the global top 10 on both Prime Video and 
HBO Max and shooting up the streaming charts on 
MGM+ in the United States after grossing $98 million against a $40 million budget.
However, it failed to score with critics. The action thriller achieved just 47% on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with reviews concluding that, while it delivers “on the meat and potatoes of a Jason Statham vehicle,” it lacks personality.
‘A Working Man’ Caused a Major Divide Between Critics & Audiences
A Working Man could not have been more divisive with critics and audiences, and while the former were ultimately left wanting, the latter deemed the action thriller to be the perfect “bang bang shoot’ em up that pairs perfectly with hot, buttery popcorn,” awarding A Working Man a “Verified Hot” 87% score from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter.
While we revisit the high-octane delights of A Working Man over and over on various streaming platforms, Jason Statham has plenty of action thrills in the pipeline, including this year’s Mutiny, which finds the actor taking over a cargo ship on a hunt for revenge and is due to be released on Aug. 21. The actor is also due to reunite with director Guy Ritchie on the long-awaited crime thriller Viva La Madness; will lead director David Leitch’s meta-comedy Jason Statham Stole My Bike; and is set to return as shady assassin Adam Clay in The Beekeeper 2, which is due to debut on Jan. 15, 2027.
- Release Date
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March 28, 2025
- Runtime
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116 minutes
- Director
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David Ayer
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
