Jason Statham stars in David Ayer’s new Chicago-set action thriller, A Working Man, based on Chuck Dixon’s 2014 book, Levon’s Trade.

A Working Man was filmed in both Chicago and the United Kingdom. The Chicago footage is very noticeable, especially the aerial footage and some of the driving sequences. One of the key locations in the film, Skip’s, is not on actual bar on Rush Street. At the same time, I’m not familiar with Chicago’s underworld scene at all so I can’t speak to how representative it is of the city.

Following years of service as a Royal Guard soldier, Levon Cade (Jason Statham) is now working on construction. It’s easy money and he stays out of trouble so that he be a good father to his daughter, Merry (Isla Gie). Unfortunately, Levon arrives to work after the weekend to find out that his employer’s daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), is now missing. Joe (Michael Peña) and Carla Garcia (Noemi Gonzalez) want Levon to help find her and bring her home. Levon isn’t sure if he can do it, not without the blessing of war buddy Gunny Lefferty (David Harbour). Only after Gunny’s encouragement will Levon rise up to the occasion.

Levon’s search in A Working Man leads him into Chicago’s underworld where he pretends to be a drug dealer. It’s not long before he realizes that the Russian mob is behind Jenny’s kidnapping and that the Russians are working with other criminal enterprises. As Levon learns, bringing Jenny home is going to be easier said than done. You know how they say heroes don’t wear capes? This is more or less what’s happening. You don’t want to cross Levon or you’re going to end up on the short end of the stick so to speak!

There are real stakes in the film. Levon isn’t just doing this because he wants to. He’s insistent to his father-in-law that his military past is behind him–his wife battled depression for years and killed herself while Levon was deployed. But regardless of his past circumstances, Levon is doing this because the Garcias are like family to him.

The aforementioned 2014 novel is the first book in a current 12-book series so it’s very well possible that Ayer and Statham have kicked off a new vigilante justice franchise with A Working Man. We’ll have to see how things develop on that front. Both Ayer and Statham have a fan base so if this film does well enough at the box office, a sequel is certainly possible. Movies like these are made for the big screen and it doesn’t hurt that Rocky creator Sylvester Stallone is a co-writer. Obviously, it’s an Amazon MGM title so it’s going to end up on Prime Video sooner than later.

There’s a universe where Stallone develops A Working Man as a TV series. There’s no problem with that on this end as it could work in either format. We’ve seen how books have been developed into films only to later be rebooted in the long-form television format. Interestingly enough, titles that come to mind are a pair of Prime Video series, Jack Ryan and Reacher. Such series can be equally cinematic and we’ve seen no dearth of series released with a cinematic feel to it.

A Working Man is nearly two hours of edge-of-your seat thrills in every which direction.

DIRECTOR: David Ayer
SCREENWRITERS: Sylvester Stallone and David Ayer
CAST: Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Merab Ninidze, Maximilian Osinski, Cokey Falkow, with Michael Peña and David Harbour, Noemi Gonzalez, Arianna Rivas, Emmett J. Scanlan, Eve Mauro

Amazon MGM Studios will release A Working Man in theaters on March 28, 2025. Grade: 3.5/5

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