I looked down at my watch. “9:53 p.m.?”
9:51 p.m. felt like an hour ago.
“A Working Man” hit theaters March 28 and made me check my watch every two minutes. It is predictable and unoriginal.
The movie had good plans for character dynamics. Levon Cade (Jason Satham) is an ex-military hero who works an ordinary office job, but gets dragged into violence when he has to rescue his employer’s daughter.
While I like the concept of the plot, it’s cliche — it’s the typical “search for the missing person” trope. Instead of an adrenaline-filled thriller, it’s predictable and bland.
One of my biggest frustrations with the movie is that it doesn’t breach the level of depth it proposes for Levon in the trailers. He’s supposed to be a deeply conflicted man, haunted by his past, but the way the movie tries to demonstrate his PTSD through awkward, brooding stares and robotic lines made me cringe. Instead of falling in love with the character and crying because of his tragic backstory, I wanted to fall in love with my reclining chair and take a nap.
Despite that, the choreography in the fight scenes is well executed. Levon takes down bad guys with fancy kicks and efficiency. There’s nothing fancy about the fight scenes, though. I wasn’t thinking “Wow” — I was thinking, “Hmm, this seems like a standard fight scene.” There was nothing wrong, but nothing amazing either.
The antagonists are supposed to be terrifying Russian gangsters, but are forgettable. The main gangster is played by Josh Hutcherson, which seems exciting, but the character is so poorly written that he just seems like a template. The moments where he’s going to pop up or when he’s going to lose are so obvious that it’s just boring to watch.
The dialogue drags on. I lost count of how many times characters give biblically long, self-important speeches that made me regret watching the movie in the first place. Before every fight scene, there’s a lengthy argument or talk between the characters that had me pulling my hair out.
This movie is terrible. The whole point of an action movie is suspense, and this movie lacks any. It hurt to sit through because it was so bad — I would not recommend watching “A Working Man,” because it was not working, man.
