In bleak and troubled times, sometimes all it takes is seeing Jason Statham scowling in a hardhat to make it feel like maybe everything will be okay in the end after all. And that's exactly what we get in the no fuss, no muss first trailer for A Working Man, the Stath's latest team-up with The Beekeeper director David Ayer. Boasting a screenplay co-written by Ayer alongside action icon Sylvester Stallone, this one — surely the second in what will come to be known as The Three (Blue) Collars Trilogy — sees Stath play brilliantly named ex-black ops agent Levon Cade, whose humble construction worker life is upended when his boss' daughter goes missing. If it sounds like an old-school action dust-up waiting to happen, then it looks like one too — and a darn tasty one at that. Just check out the trailer below:
Over the past half-decade, Jason Statham has proven himself to be one of Hollywood's most reliable hard men, understanding and acing the assignment in genre fare from Meg 2: The Trench, to Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw and Fast X, to Guy Ritchie joints Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre and Wrath Of Man. And in this beefy, three-minute-long first look at A Working Man, we do verily see a man at work. Backed by a solid supporting cast including David Harbour and Michael Peña, here we see Statham's brickie Levon getting handy with a steel bucket, a pick-axe, a sledgehammer, and a slightly less working class tool — a bluetooth-scoped assault rifle acquired from Harbour's as-yet-unnamed "weapon sommelier." As Stath observes, "Gangs, the mob, corrupt government officials, they're all involved in human trafficking," and with a trafficked human to save, there's plenty enough here to assure us Levon will heed his beardy pal's sage words: "You killed your way into this — you're gonna have to kill your way out of it."
And, as if it's even necessary at this point, here's the official synopsis for 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.” Within said world of corruption will be an ensemble cast comprising Jason Flemyng, Merab Ninidze, Maximilian Osinski, Cokey Falkow, Noemi Gonzalez, Arianna Rivas, Emmett J. Scanlan, and Eve Mauro.
We'll see whether A Working Man gets the job done when Statham and Ayer's latest collaboration hits our screens on 28 March.