Despite the fact that A Working Man solely exists to give Jason Statham a new action property to star in, the film may actually have been better served without the leading man as the central character. Statham has had a prolific career across his decades in Hollywood, starring in some of the biggest franchises of all time, despite the fact that most of his movies don’t tend to be huge critical successes. A Working Man‘s reviews certainly didn’t buck that trend, but it could’ve potentially been better if Statham wasn’t the main character.
A Working Man has a very simple plot, taking inspiration from plenty of different action films and stories to create a movie that is fairly derivative when compared to some of the more original movies in the genre in recent years. Even during A Working Man‘s ending, it stays pretty tame, which is unfortunate considering most of Statham’s more beloved projects have him doing something outside the norm. He’s a great actor in his niche, but if he wasn’t the protagonist of this story, A Working Man could’ve definitely benefited.
A Working Man Proved Jenny Could Have Saved Herself Without Jason Statham’s Character’s Help
She Could Have Easily Been The Protagonist
While A Working Man‘s story revolves around Jason Statham’s character, Levon Cade, rescuing a young girl who was kidnapped by Russian traffickers, the film eventually showed that Jenny, the kidnapped girl, could’ve escaped from her captors using her own skills. At one point in the movie, she manages to break free of her pair of kidnappers, Artemis and Viper, before ultimately being caught again. However, when Levon arrives, she also helps him fight off the two, eventually killing one of them, as she had some prior knowledge of Karate.
A Working Man Would’ve Been More Interesting From Jenny’s Perspective, Not Levon Cade’s
A Bigger Role For Jenny Would Have Made The Movie Stand Out
Jason Statham did put on a solid performance as Levon Cade in A Working Man, clearly trying to build off his success from The Beekeeper last year, but Jenny probably would’ve worked better as the protagonist of the movie. A Working Man was based off of a book called Levon’s Trade, obviously featuring Levon Cade as the protagonist, so realistically, there was no way the movie wouldn’t have included him, even if the story could have been better off for it.
On a $40 million budget, A Working Man has made over $67 million at the box office over 2 weeks in theaters.
However, Jenny as the protagonist, trying to escape her captors by herself, would have been a more interesting story than what eventually came out. A Working Man, if it does become a franchise, could definitely benefit from taking the entirety of the spotlight off of Levon, and giving other characters some time to shine. If Jenny was the protagonist, then the film could’ve done a lot more to differentiate itself from other movies in the genre, and A Working Man would probably have been much more memorable.
