Jason Statham delivers another fantastic performance in A Working Man. The high-action, intense movie will keep you on the edge of your seat. I personally loved the storyline and enjoyed watching Cade (Statham) tear through the underbelly of the dragon so that he could save his friend. Working Man is Directed by David Ayer (“The Beekeeper”, “End of Watch”) from a screenplay by Ayer and Sylvester Stallone (“Rocky”). The film is produced by Chris Long, Jason Statham, John Friedberg, David Ayer, Bill Block, and Kevin King Templeton. This is a great team that put together a fantastic movie that will deliver action and entertainment. One of the biggest points of this movie that I appreciated was that the female lead wasn’t a helpless “stereotypical” female. She was a badA$$ and it was fun to watch.
Keep in mind that the movie is rated R for a reason. There is a lot of graphic violence as well as between 80-100 F bombs, plus other language. While it does talk about human trafficking, and some scenes will make your skin crawl, there isn’t much in the way of showing anything sexually explicit. One scene in a club that shows women in revealing clothing.
A Working Man, from Amazon MGM Studios, is now available for purchase on 4K UHD ™, Blu-ray ™, and DVD, and digital. You can also stream it on MGM+ if you have that.
Based on the book “Levon’s Trade” by: Chuck Dixon
A Working Man stars Jason Statham (“The Beekeeper,” “Furious 7”, “The Fate of the Furious,” The “Transporter” films), Jason Flemyng (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”), Merab Ninidze (“Conclave”), Maximillian Osinski (TV’s “Ted Lasso”), Cokey Falkow (Jurassic World: Dominion”), with Michael Peña (“End of Watch”) and David Harbour (TV’s “Stranger Things”).
ABOUT THE FILM:
Levon Cade left behind a decorated military career in the black ops to live a simple life working construction. But when his boss’s daughter, who is like family to him, is taken by human traffickers, his search to bring her home uncovers a world of corruption far greater than he ever could have imagined.
Directed by: David Ayer
Written by: Sylvester Stallone and David Ayer
Produced by: Chris Long, Jason Statham, John Friedberg, David Ayer, Sylvester Stallone, Bill Block, Kevin King Templeton
Cast: Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Merab Ninidze, Maximillian Osinski, Cokey Falkow, Michael Peña, and David Harbour.
Genre: Action
Run Time: 116 minutes (1 hour and 56 minutes)
Rated R for strong violence, language throughout, and drug content
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A WORKING MAN
Production Notes
Levon Cade has given up his high-risk profession as a former Royal Guard soldier to work construction and focus on being a good father. But when a daughter of his employer and dear family friend, Jenny, vanishes in a human trafficking kidnapping, he must tap into his skills from that former life to find her and bring her home. We follow as Levon poses as a drug dealer in order to infiltrate the Chicago underworld, the Russian mob and criminal enterprises both seedy and superior to return Jenny to her family. Jason Statham stars in director David Ayer’s A WORKING MAN, the story of a blue-collar brute pulled into battle one more time.
Directed by acclaimed filmmaker David Ayer (End of Watch, Fury, Suicide Squad, The Beekeeper), A WORKING MAN stars global action superstar Jason Statham (Snatch, The Transporter, Crank, The Beekeeper), Emmy Award® nominee and SAG Award® winner David Harbour (‘Stranger Things,’ Black Widow), SAG Award® winner Michael Peña (End of Watch, American Hustle) and Arianna Rivas (The Harvest, Prom Dates). With a screenplay by Academy Award® nominee Sylvester Stallone (Rocky, First Blood, Creed) based on the book “Levon’s Trade” by author Chuck Dixon (Detective Comics, The Punisher), the film is produced by Chris Long (The Tax Collector, The Beekeeper), Statham, John Friedberg (Ferrari, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare), Ayer, Stallone, Bill Block (Fury, The Holdovers, The Beekeeper) and Kevin King Templeton (Creed, The Expendables, Rambo: Last Blood). Teddy Schwarzman, Michael Heimler, Mike Shanks, Jill Silfen, Volodymyr Artemenko, Yevgen Stupka, Alexis Garcia, Rachael Cole and Thomas Zadra are executive producers. Jason Flemyng (Snatch, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Maximilian Osinski (Love & Other Drugs, ‘Hollywood Hitmen’), Chidi Ajufo (The Book of Clarence, Gladiator II), Emmett J. Scanlan (‘Hollyoaks,’ ‘The Tower’), Eve Mauro (‘Cypher,’ Under the Palm Tree), Noemi Gonzalez (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, The Tax Collector) and newcomer Isla Gie (‘Slow Horses,’ ‘The Outlaws’) round out the cast.
Joining Ayer behind the camera are cinematographer Shawn White (The Flash, Road House), production designer Nigel Evans (War for the Planet of the Apes, Spider-Man: Far From Home) costume designer Tiziana Corvisieri (Sing Street, Cocaine Bear) and film editor Fred Raskin (Guardians of the Galaxy, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). The stunt team is led by SAG Award®-nominated stunt coordinators Eddie Fernandez (The Dark Knight, Jurassic World, The Beekeeper) and Nik Schodel (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Wonder Woman, The Beekeeper), along with special effects supervisors Simon Cockren (The Lost City of Z, The Beekeeper) and ‘Snake’ Gergö Bajcár (‘Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,’ The Beekeeper). The sound team features production mixer Ben Greaves (Avatar: The Way of Water, ‘Skeleton Crew’), re-recording mixer Christopher Aud (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Beekeeper) and re-recording mixer/supervising sound editor Laurent Kossayan (Bad Boys for Life, The Matrix Resurrections).
FINDING THE STORY
Following their successful initial collaboration on Amazon MGM Studios’ The Beekeeper in 2024, visionary filmmaker David Ayer and renowned action superstar Jason Statham were eager to dive straight into a new film together. They had established a wonderful chemistry and were excited to take things to the next level. It just so happened Statham had his hands on the perfect project, an adaptation of author Chuck Dixon’s 2014 novel “Levon’s Trade,” the first in a series of 12 books centered on retired U.S. Marine-turned expert vigilante Levon Cade.
“I like that vigilante justice genre and I kind of wanted to still scratch that itch,” the author says. “I wanted a guy who was good at basically death-dealing, one of the rough men that we count on to go to horrible places and do horrible things to bad people to keep us free.”
Dixon has always found himself drawn to a concept he calls the “slob hero,” someone who is just a normal guy you might encounter at work or in line at the supermarket. “He’s not out to save the world or seek glory,” he says. “In fact, Levon is trying to forget his past by getting a regular job and being a regular guy. But like they say in the old Westerns, there are some things a man can’t walk around.”
The script Statham had in hand, meanwhile, came with a mark of royalty in the action-movie space: it was written by famed actor star, Sylvester Stallone. Stallone had collaborated with Dixon on a graphic-novel extension of his The Expendables franchise in 2021, “The Expendables Go to Hell,” and he was curious about what else the author was working on. That’s when he came to the Levon Cade series, which presented a character that very much spoke to a guy who carved his place in the industry by portraying similar types on screen.
“It was so simple and relatable,” Stallone says. “The action genre has been, let’s just say, fashioned in a different mold that doesn’t really require the actor to be the driving force. With Levon Cade, it’s the character you bond with. He doesn’t have a uniform. He can’t fly. He doesn’t have supernatural abilities. He’s the same as you, but with honed skills.”
Stallone had first considered translating the Levon canon into a television series before settling on a feature film adaptation. He also immediately thought of his old Expendables pal, Statham, who he views as the “heir apparent” to the action hero throne.
“He’s perfect for this kind of role, the guy that comes in, stoic, like Yojimbo,” Stallone says. “Bang, bang, bang, and then he’s on his way. It’s the most romantic visual. You come in, kick some ass, leave. That’s Have Gun Will Travel. It’s The Man with No Name. It’s Rambo. He doesn’t ask for anything, then he disappears into the woods.”
From there, Statham brought the material to Ayer, who responded immediately. “Inside of that story, I saw something that was really interesting to me,” Ayer says. “I saw the genesis of this idea of the war-torn anti-hero finding a new life, finding new opportunity and creating a surrogate family, and then coming to the rescue of that family.”
That’s very much in line with Dixon’s earliest intentions with the character. He wasn’t interested in writing about a tortured loner vigilante. What gives Levon and his journey stakes is the fact that there are real threats to people he loves along the way and he has people to come home to, who care about him. A WORKING MAN finds Levon in the midst of a second life working construction for the Garcia family in Chicago, a sort of surrogate son, trusted and cherished by the tight-knit family. When the Garcias’ daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), is abducted into a sordid underworld of Russian mafia and human trafficking, the family calls on Levon to tap into his particular set of skills to bring her home. Meanwhile, following the tragic death of his wife, Levon is fighting for custody of his own daughter, Merry (Isla Gie), battling in court with his ex-father-in-law, who sees Levon as a PTSD-riddled ex-soldier unfit to raise a child.
Statham has put together a robust filmography (and body count) as a finely-tuned warrior in any number of 21st-Century actioners. But rarely has he had the opportunity to depict the layers inherent in Dixon’s creation.
“Jason has got a lot more that he can throw at you, trust me,” Stallone says. “He has a fantastic personality. He has humor to his character. His persona is one of seriousness and ‘get the job done’ and no self-embellishment, but when I’m with him, he’s much more buoyant. He’s funnier. He’s sarcastic. He brings in innuendo. Most directors don’t pull it out of him because maybe they don’t think it’s necessary, but I like him showing his kind of transitory personality, that he can do all these things.”
Adds Ayer: “There’s something very real and very blue-collar about Jason, and the idea of seeing him in a construction environment seemed like an incredible way to ground him in our world,” Ayer says. “The more you can put him into our real lives, our real worlds, the more he shines. There’s something so kind of guy-next-door. He could be your uncle, your brother, your father. And then creating this family around him was, I think, the key to the adaptation.”
As Ayer took his swing at the material on the page, the Levon character was revamped as an ex-Royal Marines soldier to suit Statham’s British background, while considerable effort was put into deepening the Jenny character beyond a damsel in distress. The story takes on Western overtones – The Searchers in the Windy City, if you will – but Ayer saw the opportunity to not only build more nuance into the character, but provide a richer opportunity for the actress who would portray her.
“We didn’t want to see Jenny disempowered or to see her as a victim,” Ayer says. “We wanted to see her discover herself, discover who she is, to go on an actual journey. She’s more of a prisoner of war, a fighter resisting. She comes from this strong family and she’s a strong person with all these goals in life. When you look at survivors and people who overcome the worst situations thrown at them, they have that. They have belief in themselves, belief in their family. They know who they are and they have something to live for.”
AN EXTENDED FAMILY
Jenny is an unusual role, a bit of an “alpha,” as Ayer puts it. She’s a young woman first navigating strong-willed parents, and then the darkest of humanity, who, by the end of the story, finds herself rocking and rolling alongside a trained killer in Levon. Ayer decided to cast relative newcomer Arianna Rivas in the part.
“Jenny comes off as this sort of caregiver,” Rivas says. “She’s very nurturing towards the people that she cares about, but fierce and strong-willed when it comes to danger. I thought it was just a really cool contrast of character, where she’s soft and gentle and focused and grounded. But then on top of that, she’s a terror who will wreak havoc when it’s necessary. That was such a nice balance to have as a woman.”
The relationship with Levon was also a draw, as he floats around on the edge of this family as, again, something of an adopted son.
“I think Jenny sees Levon as this teddy bear with a hard exterior, and I think she has fun trying to crack it open,” Rivas says. “I think to her it’s intriguing, because she sees that there’s a lot to him. I see it almost like a big-brother-younger-sister dynamic, and I think they later come to find that they have a lot more in common than they thought.”
A lot of young actresses are often typecast into being very demure, Long explains. But Ayer and the producers were drawn to Rivas’ physicality and ability to do her own stunts.
“She had a gymnastics background and she had an intense audition with David,” says producer Chris Long. “He called me and said, ‘I found her. She’s the only one who could stand up to me and kind of give it back.’ That’s how you find great actors. She’s fearless.’”
For the role of Joe Garcia, the patriarch of the family and a shrewd real estate developer overseeing a sprawling construction business, Ayer looked to actor Michael Peña. The two had collaborated twice before, on 2012’s End of Watch and 2014’s Fury.
“Michael has such range and versatility,” Ayer says. “There’s something very natural about him, even though he’s incredibly cerebral as an actor and incredibly hard-working and focused. I knew I could count on him to be the father of this family and find these levels.”
Peña says he was eager to saddle up with Ayer again, as the two have a strong connection and hadn’t had the chance to work together in several years. He was also, of course, thoroughly excited by the chance to work on something written by Stallone. But it was ultimately the role’s emotional texture that really spoke to him.
“It’s a bunch of scenes that are heart-wrenching,” Peña says. “You come home and you’re exhausted. It was a short schedule for me, but it was a tough one. But David knows me pretty well. I just love working with the dude.”
Additionally, as a Latino actor himself, Peña says he was thrilled to see Rivas get this kind of opportunity.
“I was fortunate enough when David wrote a Latin character in END OF WATCH,” he says. “I told him then, as a performer, I didn’t have the confidence to lead in a movie, because I thought, systematically, I was always just going to be a small supporting character. And here he is, like, ‘Here you are, dude. Let’s go.’ I was kind of freaked out and nervous the whole time. To see the next generation and a young Latino come up and have this opportunity is just amazing. And Arianna is awesome. She wants to learn. She’s going to have a hell of a first teacher.”
That element was also key for actress Noemi Gonzalez, who Ayer cast in the role of Joe’s wife and Jenny’s mother, Carla Garcia.
“The story is a really empowering one for women and for multicultural interaction,” Gonzalez says. “It’s been inspirational to see Arianna, because with young actors, or new actors, you don’t know how it’s going to be. Ultimately, she’s very focused. She’s a beast, and not only when it comes to fighting or choreography or stunt work, but also when it comes to craft and questions she’s asking herself. She’s very willing and curious.”
Along the way, Levon pays a visit to an old comrade in Gunny Leffertz, a blind war buddy who has taught Levon valuable lessons. The character functions in many different ways, but the biggest might be as a mirror to Levon’s own limitations. Because Gunny is a product of those limitations. Ayer sought out actor David Harbour for the role, who he previously directed in End of Watch and Suicide Squad.
“I think Gunny constantly reminds Levon of his vulnerability,” Harbour says. “That’s part of the reason for the character, to check him and to tell him that he’s not immortal, that he’s not perfect, and that there is collateral damage to his actions.”
In the film, Levon visits Gunny at his wilderness retreat to, in effect, ask his old friend’s permission to engage in this former lifestyle they have shared, and shed, together and go off in search of Jenny with all the tools at his disposal. Many of those tools will come from Gunny himself as he becomes Levon’s “weapons sommelier,” providing him with a curated cache of artisanal firearms that will be used to complete the mission.
“It’s a difficult character, I think, for any actor to play, because there’s such specificity to these military people, to people who have experienced this level of combat, of stress, of tension, of training,” Ayer says. “There’s almost a very particular personality that they have. David absolutely nailed it. He felt like the real deal.”
Harbour also admits that he had been itching to work with Statham, whose movies and characterizations have become so engrained in the fabric of contemporary action cinema.
“I’m a bit of a tourist in this movie because I’m not in it for much, but Jason has been very gracious,” Harbour says. “It’s always interesting to meet big stars and see what they’re really like behind the curtain, and I think he’s pretty much as he appears, grounded and real, and yet he has a certain vulnerability, which I find admirable for somebody who makes action movies. Maybe that’s the reason why we like watching Jason Statham movies, because he’s very human.”
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