The Binge Rampage team was in attendance for a special YouTube Creators Screening Event of the film, “A Working Man”, by Amazon/MGM Studios on March 26th.
The Movie was directed by David Ayer, known for “End of Watch” and “The Beekeeper” amongst many other big budget projects that he’s also Produced and Written for. Sylvester Stallone also has a writing credit on the movie. Jason Statham stars with Michael Peña and David Harbour playing supporting roles…with not much screentime. The film centers around an ex-special forces character (Statham) who gave up the life to be a single dad for his daughter. Warning, light spoilers for “A Working Man” ahead.
The film centers around an ex-special forces character (Statham) who gave up the life to be a single dad for his daughter.
The film starts predictably enough with Statham’s character working a construction job and trying to live a regular life but less than 10 minutes in and his plot armor kicks in as he conveniently runs into a group of thugs that need to be taught a lesson.
If you go to a Jason Stayan movie expecting to see a different type of movie than a witty, fun and violent dude – good luck, but we were under no delusions and did enjoy the well choreographed action scenes. You do sometimes have to suspend disbelief, when the bad guys aim always seems goes to hell right as our hero is driving a straight line…but isn’t that almost every action flick? Peña’s character gives a few laughs but doesn’t get much screen time and David Harbours character is onscreen even less unfortunately.
This is Statham doing what he does, being a one man army. The female lead Arianna Rivas does a surprisingly good job with her scenes and had a good amount of the YouTube Creator audience at the screening laughing and cheering more than a few times. She also proves herself more than just another damsel in distress to be saved by Statham, although ultimately Statham is going to save the day overall.
There were some typical tropes like the menacing Russian gangsters or the Meth Moving Biker Gang, but overall there were a handful of enjoyable characters and intense scenes with decent to good witty one-liners to bookend those scenes. It did feel like the source material came from a bigger story and they weren’t able to flush the relationships out more (especially with Harbour’s character), although the almost 2 hour runtime definitely feel a bit too long. Can “A Working Man” beat the abysmal “Snow White” in the box office for it’s opening weekend?
If you’re looking for a fun action flick with the fam,this is definitely a solid option, but “Oppenheimer” it is not.
“A Working Man” was released in theaters on Friday, March 28th.
Did you see the film? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
