The thing that put me in the right headspace for this movie was the score.
There is a little of the contemporary Zimmeresque tones but there is a lot of synth piano and martial Melodies which feel like descendants of the kinds of soundtracks that used to pump up the oeuvres of Schwarzenegger, Stallone (who has a screenplay credit), and their ilk.
The story is straightforward but filled with interesting textures - the villains are different varieties of scumbag. Maybe not as colourful as the antagonists of Ayer’s last film, but they feel more grounded and fleshed out.
While almost completely earnest, the film is willing to be completely silly - the blinged out Russian gangbangers, the biker gang with various kinds of helmet (one wears a Samurai helm, the leader’s headgear is a German WW2 helmet with antlers).
The wealthy predator who is salivating after young girls is a caricature of privilege - in the last scene he wears a top hat, cloak and holds a cigarette holder.
An intentional gag? Who cares?
It is all very violent and satisfying, with an action-packed finale featuring Statham taking on armies of villains.
While the veteran action star gets to play one-man-army, the film deserves credit for giving the would-be damsel in distress, Arianna Rivas, some opportunities to escape. In a satisfying addition to the climax, she gets her own back against her captors, in suitably gruesome fashion.
Following Ayer’s previous movie, I was expecting A Working Man to dabble in contemporary political dog whistles (especially with the villains’ involvement in human trafficking).
It ends up feeling more traditional - a kidnapped woman as the catalyst for righteous ass-kicking.
If anything, what is interesting about the film is how it takes a familiar template, and revises it for the 2020s. The most obvious shift is our hero’s background as a veteran of the War on Terror.
After twenty-something years, films like this one are using America’s most recent conflict in the symbolic place that Vietnam took in the action genre’s earlier days.
This war becomes a signifier for protagonists blessed with extraordinary skills and cursed by the consequences of those skills.
The ending seems to hint at this - with Statham’s exit after delivering the girl framed in a similar fashion to John Wayne’s at the end of The Searchers - but it seems like this working man will get the redemption Wayne never gets.
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