A Working Man (#668)


As I was leaving the theater after watching A WORKING MAN, I asked the young couple behind me, "I lost count. How many did he kill? " They laughed and said, "We don't know. We lost count, too." Which is all you need to know about a film starring Jason Statham, a younger and more competent version of Liam Neeson. You can almost predict from the beginning what's going to happen. His movies rarely if ever stray.  In this one, he is a construction worker with s young daughter (no wife) with obviously violent skills gained in the military. His boss's young daughter is abducted by sex traffickers, and he reluctantly agrees to find and free her. And he proceeds to do his own version of population control by violently eliminating scores of evil men and women until he finds the abductors and the girl. He does not seem to be aware of the odds against him winning when he is confronted by six, eight or ten opponents. It's all the same to him, and he is a skilled mutilator of one and all. His movies are fun and predictable, and it doesn't make any different if he's a good guy or a bad one. 89% of audiences joined me in giving this one a thumbs up; critics were less affable at only 52%.  


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