Shocker! Jason Statham Playing 'A Working Man' Who Is Ex-Special Forces??
#313: "A Working Man," "Opus," "Heat," "Adolescence"
Edition 313:
Hey movie lovers!
This week: Jason Statham as a blue collar worker who is ex-special forces? Who would’ve guessed! Plus the little indie movie that you’ve never heard of that’s far better, a tribute to the late great Val Kilmer, and the best TV show of 2025 so far. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” Guy Ritchie is ripping off Indiana Jones and I’m here for all of it.
A Working Man
Each of the past couple of years we’ve all had a collective existential crisis about movies at this point in the calendar. Movies are bombing at the box office, and they aren’t good, and not one’s excited.
But we all step back and say — just wait for summer blockbusters! Just wait for awards movies in the fall and winter! (Here was me last year saying as much on a Forbes Talks video.)
Well, my brain broke alongside my optimism at the reports coming out of CinemaCon. While I’m not in Las Vegas this year for the conference, I’ve been following the proceedings closely as each studio reveals its 2025 slate.
Universal’s presentation began with its global distribution chief saying, “We have to give [audiences] stories they haven’t seen before,” then proceeded to unveil almost exclusively sequels and reboots. Even Jason Blum, who helms the creative oasis (or so we thought!) Blumhouse, with its strategy of “do whatever you want as long as it costs less than $5 million!” came to the stage to promote Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (dressed in a costume from the movie), plus Black Phone 2, the M3GAN 2.0 sequel AND a spin-off from the same universe called SOULM8TE.
This is what movies is now. In an environment where food is scarce (and by food I mean money), the industry has resorted to eating its own tail.
That’s important preamble, I think, to any discussion of the new Jason Statham action movie A Working Man.
It’s not a sequel…technically, though we’re so far beyond the point of parody with Statham, who has made some version of the same blue collar action hero movie dozens of times throughout his career. He’s the cinematic equivalent of a Barbie or Ken doll, the same product swapped out for new clothes and accessories and resold to the same customers who loved him before.
Of course, he always delivers. And audiences always show up it though, though I think the success of last year’s The Beekeeper has been a little overblown — everyone can be made whole and moves on to the next, but no one is making a fortune off of it (except for maybe Statham, who cashes $20 million each time, according to my Forbes reporting).
Without me telling you, I’m fairly certain you could pencil in the details of what little plot exist here. Down-on-his-luck, hard-working construction worker in Carhartt jacket and boots also happens to be…you guessed it, ex-special forces (in movie speak, “ex special forces” translates to “literal superhero”), who punches, kicks, chokes, stabs, slices and shoots his way through the Russian mob to rescue the innocent daughter of his boss. (Blue collar workers are, after all, well-known for loving their richer bosses.)
While they gave about as much thought and attention to the dialogue and storytelling parts of the movie as, like, a porn movie, it’s satisfying as ever to watch Statham do his thing, and it’s clear they had enough of a budget for stunts and explosions to class this movie up from being just a pure shlocky B-movie.
So no, the movie isn’t bad, it’s just so unshakably derivative. Even the people who like this movie like it with the full knowledge that it’s like 80% of what The Beekeeper was, which was like 80% of The Mechanic, which was like 80% of The Transporter (seriously, how many more jobs can this ex-special forces guy have??).
This year 2025 is going to be chalk full of these kind of “remember that thing you liked before? Here’s a less good version of it” movies.
And I can’t decide whether I’d be more sad if this trend drives people even further away from movie theaters, which would be devastating to the already spiraling industry…or whether the “survive to ‘25” is proven right and people come back in droves. The latter would only reinforce the studios’ inclination to churn out a M3GAN 3.0 or, I don’t know, The Plumber??
Something New
Opus (Theaters): Part of the reason for the problem outlined above is that creative independent movies are simply incapable of breaking through with general audiences. This movie has a $2 million box office total after opening in 1,700 theaters. That’s DOA!
Now, I’m not saying this movie is some can’t-miss hidden gem, but come on. Ayo Edebiri from “The Bear” and John Malkovich starring in a Get Out style horror thriller?! That’s interesting, especially if you’re a magazine reporter (coughcough), because Edebiri stars as a young magazine journalist who gets sent out to profile Malkovich’s reclusive, cultish pop star.
It’s funny, exciting, and yes a little weird and uneven, but man I just have to believe that if you sat down any reasonable adult and forced them to watch this as well as Snow White or A Minecraft Movie or whatever more “commercial” fare is being marketed down our throats, they would say this was better.
But the system is broken!
Geez, sorry for how existential and depressing I sound today!!
Something Old
Heat (1986, Netflix): Rest in peace Val Kilmer, who passed this week at the age of 65. He’s always going to be known on screen as Iceman, or maybe Jim Morrison for any big fans of The Doors (or The Doors), or Doc Holiday in Tombstone, and of course in my heart he’s Gay Perry from a personal favorite of mine Kiss Kiss Bang Bang…but if we’re talking about the BEST movie that Kilmer appeared in there is of course nothing that can compare to Michael Mann’s Heat, the standard-setter for the modern heist movie.
Kilmer plays a heavy in Robert De Niro’s crew of expert thieves, being tracked by Al Pacino’s fiery detective. It’s a long movie (2hr50min) and yet somehow incredibly rewatchable, one of the best movies of the last 30 years. Perhaps my favorite Kilmer story ever is when he was asked what he liked most about working on this movie and he said, “Imagine being able to call them Bob and Al for the rest of your life.”
Something To Stream
Adolescence (Netflix): No one hates to say this more than me, but man, television is really eating movies’ lunch right now. At a time when everything at the box office is a copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy, streamers are popping out TV shows that are original, daring, and just really damn entertaining. I’m loving “The Studio” and will definitely be finishing “Dope Thief,” but the best of these new shows is absolutely “Adolescence,” which is far better than any movie that has come out in 2025.
Fair warning, it’s a very harrowing experience to watch. The story follows the story of a 13-year-old boy who is accused of murdering a classmate, and every episode is shot in one continuous, hour-long shot, so there’s no escaping the situation. It’s a rare time when the filmmaking is not fancy for fancy’s sake. It’s incredibly impressive (I don’t know how they do some of these complex transition shots) in service of the storytelling.
If you take no other recommendation this week, commit to watching this four-part series that’ll hook you from the opening moments. (Though you’re a brave man/woman if you can binge all four, because that’s a lot of heavy content all at once. I recommend having a funny show on tap to break it up.)
Trailer Watch: Fountain of Youth
New Guy Ritchie movie next month? Anyone who has read this newsletter for a while knows I’m lining up day one. Even if this trailer has a noticeable and disappointing lack of cockney accents…!
To be honest I’ve never really bought John Krasinski as an action hero (13 Hours, “Jack Ryan”), but I suppose he’s skirting around that this time by playing a nerdy scientist action hero — so, wait, he’s just Indiana Jones?
This movie appears to be literally just an Indiana Jones reboot, with Natalie Portman and Eiza Gonzalez flanking Krasinski for a globe-trotting, clue-solving adventure. With this premise, cast and filmmaker, the floor here is pretty darn high.