A Working Man (2025)

Considering the success that came from director David Ayer helming The Beekeeper last year, it was no surprise to hear about him working once again with Jason Statham in a vehicle that seemed tailor-made for his particular skillset. I was keen to see this as soon as I heard about it, and a standard trailer that basically showed me getting more of the Statham antics that had complemented his apiary time last year didn't do anything to dampen my enthusiasm.

Statham plays Levon Cade, a working man (ahem) with a military background that he's trying to leave in his past. He remains a formidable force though, and is asked to do what the police can't when his employers fear for the life of their daughter (Jenny, played by Arianna Rivas). Jenny has been snatched by human traffickers, caught up in a criminal web overseen by numerous Russian gangsters. Most people would be intimidated by such villains. Not Statham though. He'll tear through those baddies as if they were wet toilet paper.

I don't know why I bothered to write out that description because it doesn't really matter. This is a Jason Statham movie in which Jason Statham encounters a number of escalating problems that he can always manage to sort out with violence. It's very similar to many other Jason Statham movies, and that's not a bad thing for those who enjoy watching him do his stuff. The editing is a bit overdone at times, and the lighting doesn't always help, but it's very much in line with a lot of other action fare.

Based on a book, "Levon's Trade", by Chuck Dixon, this particular slice of kick-ass retribution is co-written by Ayer and Sylvester Stallone. Stallone has written for Statham previously (Homefront, based on a book by Chuck Logan, so maybe he just likes to adapt books written by people named Chuck), but this feels very much like a film that he would write with himself in mind for the lead role. There's more of an even balance between the fists flying and the gunfire, there's a sequence in which our hero speeds over some uneven terrain on a chunky motorbike, and the final confrontation feels as if it could easily have upped the numbers to allow for one or two Expendable-adjacent cameos adding even more firepower.

Statham remains an excellent lead, and he remains convincing enough when it comes to the action. This isn't going to convert anyone, but it should easily please those who know what they're letting themselves in for. Rivas is suitably likable and plucky in her role, although she's obviously sidelined for most of the runtime, and David Harbour has a bit of fun in his supporting role (playing a blind veteran friend who is ready to help our hero stock up on guns when it's needed). There are few highlights elsewhere though, with none of the many villains, minor or major, given enough truly great moments. Emmett J Scanlan, Eve Mauro, Maximilian Osinski, and Merab Ninidze fail to make the strong impression that they should. Jason Flemyng does better, but isn't around for long, and Chidi Ajufo seems set to engage in a grand confrontation that sadly never materialises, and they are the highlights. Isla Gie is okay as the the young daughter of our hero, allowing us to remember that he's a loving father who wants to get home in one piece, and many others jostle onscreen to be pushed to safety or punched in the face by The Stath.

Here's the main thing about A Working Man though. It's just not as good as many other Statham films, and it's definitely not as much fun as The Beekeeper. All we need is a nice and simple journey that has Statham moving up a ladder of criminals until he reaches the head honcho, but what A Working Man does is try to add a variety of extra steps that ultimately lessen the enjoyment and slow down any momentum. The finale doesn't even feel as satisfying as it should due to the network of higher-ups that seem positioned to cause problems in an inevitable sequel. Ayer can handle this kind of material, as he proved last year, but the script causes problems here. A weak script doesn't always matter for a decent action movie, just as it doesn't matter when it comes to certain horror movies, but you need enough bone-crunching action to distract from it. This doesn't quite get the balance right, which is a shame, although there are enough moments here and there to please fans of Statham doing Statham stuff.

6/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

The Beekeeper (2024)

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this Jason Statham vehicle, especially with director David Ayer working from a script by Kurt Wimmer, and, as the credits rolled, I still wasn’t really sure what I had just watched. Was it good? Was every choice a deliberate one? Was I supposed to care about a twist I could see coming a mile away? I was sure of one thing though. I had fun with it.

Statham is the titular beekeeper, minding his hives and minding his own business. He is invited to dinner by a kindly woman he knows (Phylicia Rashad), but only finds a corpse when he gets there. The woman has been scammed by hackers, losing all of her money and all of the money that belonged to a charity organisation she worked for. Raging at the injustice, Statham decides to return to his role of Beekeeper aka a super-deadly agent who works to protect the hive. The bodies soon start to pile up as the beekeeping analogy is used over and over again, and Statham has to face overwhelming odds on the way to his final target.

What you get here is ridiculous, but it is all being handled by people who seem to know it is ridiculous, whether they are onscreen or behind the camera. As often as I rolled my eyes, I was also smiling at the mix of extreme violence and goofy plotting.

Wimmer should never be a first choice for any screenplay, I won’t traumatise anyone again by mentioning some of his past “glories”, but his material is improved here by a game cast all very aware of what they have gotten themselves into.

Is Ayer a safe pair of hands when it comes to the action? I would say yes. Set-pieces could be smoother, but there is some inventiveness in each main sequence, and he doesn’t allow for the film to be over-edited into incomprehensibility. He could do better, but we have seen the results of him doing a lot worse.

It’s worth remembering, however, that neither Wimmer nor Ayer will be the big draw here (although they do have their fans). This film is being sold as a Statham vehicle, and it delivers on that front. Our leading man has a lot of fun here, doing his usual gruff and deadly schtick, and there’s a real feeling of glee as he throws subtlety to the win at the very start of the film, portraying a character so sure of himself that he will often just enter any confrontation head-on, even telling villains exactly what he is planning to do next. On his tail are two cops (played by Emmy Raver-Lampman and Bobby Naderi), one being the daughter of the deceased, and they are good extra obstacles for The Stath, who doesn’t want to harm anyone innocent. Both Raver-Lampman and Naderi do well in roles that could have been eminently forgettable, especially when interacting with the villains. Ahhhhh, the villains. This is another big plus for the film, especially when Josh Hutcherson swaggers around as some kind of ultimate douche-bro. If you start to suspect that Hutcherson’s character belongs in a ‘90s movie, you will have that suspicion confirmed in a final act that brings on a character named Lazarus (Taylor James) who could have easily been in one of the first two Lethal Weapon movies. Although playing very different types of baddies, Hutcherson and James are equally fun for every minute of their screentime. The same can be said of David Witts, and there is some amusing scenery-chewing from Jeremy Irons, Minnie Driver (in a brief cameo role), and Jemma Redgrave.

Not necessarily an essential cinema viewing, The Beekeeper is an entertaining action flick that feels enjoyably “old school”, in terms of the characters and plotting, without also feeling as if it is trying too hard. Funny and violent, making much better use of Statham than a couple of other recent releases I could mention, this might just give you the action movie buzz you seek.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share

The Tax Collector (2020)

I get it, I really do, and I may have even been guilty of it myself sometimes. If a director is doing stuff we enjoy then we enthuse over their choices, their style, and their consistency. But if we don’t enjoy their work, that consistency is seen as a major flaw, and can often be the defining element used to underline exactly how they keep making movies we don’t enjoy. 

The Tax Collector is a David Ayer movie, which means you get a lot of what David Ayer usually puts into his movies. Gritty crime happenings in a male-dominated world, people who don’t work within societal norms, but do have their own code that they live and work by, and an ending that pulls from some major incident that happened much earlier in the film.

You might not like David Ayer movies, I have had a hot and cold relationship with his filmography, but he keeps working in areas that he believes plays to his strengths. And his fans would probably agree. Here’s the kicker though, The Tax Collector is really quite good.

The story revolves around David (Bobby Soto) and Creeper (Shia LaBeouf), two men who collect money for a crime boss. They are tough, they have to be, but they also know the rules of the business, David recognises when diplomacy is better than brute force, and they work within their own code of conduct. Sadly, all of their good work looks set to come undone when a violent enemy (Conejo, played by Jose Conejo Martin) determines that he will make a major grab for power.

There isn’t anyone to help truly sell this movie, Ayer hasn’t bagged himself a MAJOR name to put in a central role, but that’s okay when you have two great lead performances from Soto and LaBeouf. And I am just going to say it, LaBeouf is absolutely superb in his role here, something I didn’t expect. He is often putting on an act, whether it is the inflection of his speech or his ability to stare down anyone who might not realise how much trouble they could be in, and it is all based on a number of strong choices that could have gone disastrously wrong. Thankfully, those choices work. Martin is an intense and intimidating villain, Cinthya Carmona and Cheyenne Rae Hernandez are both excellent as two very different female characters, and Cle Sloan is convincing in the role of a gang leader who respects the ways in which Soto’s character works hard to avoid any scenarios that could lead to mutually assured destruction.

You get the usual profanity throughout the script, the attempts to humanise criminals that you will either accept or loathe, and it’s hard to think of someone who has so consistently recycled their third act tricks of the trade more than Ayer, but the big plus here is a defining thematic strand that makes it much more effective than some of his other films.

Without spoiling things, as it becomes clear very early on, this is a film all about the power of family and friendship, but it shows it in both a positive and negative light. Family and friends can save you, support you, and inspire you, but they can also drag you down, expecting you to either follow their patterns of behaviour or just silently put up with their nonsense. Many Ayer movies have made good use of the “no loyalty among thieves” or “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” mottos. This also has a bit of that, but is much more interested in exploring those family ties, whether that is a blood tie or people in a unit that you have made part of your family. 

You will already have some idea about this film, and whether you want to watch it or not, but I think it is one of Ayer’s best, and certainly his best from the last decade or so.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

The Fast And The Furious (2001)

Point Break with flashy car races - that's all The Fast And The Furious is, but that's all it needs to be. It's a lot of brainless fun with a lot of very good looking cars on screen for most of its duration. There's also a lot of turn of the century CGI working to make the speedy sequences seem speedier and the car engine parts sometimes visible when drivers push the button for an essential NOS boost.

Paul Walker plays Brian, an undercover cop trying to get into the street racing circuit to find out just who is responsible for a number of daring heists on moving trucks (trucks that are moving, not trucks being used by removal companies). The prime suspect is Dominic Toretto, played by Vin Diesel, who is the centre of the street racing scene and the man that most of the main players look up to. But Brian gets close, too close. He likes Dom's sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster), and gets to like Dom as he gets closer to cracking the case.

Rob Cohen directs with aptitude and certainly knows that, whenever possible, the car is the star here. The script, written by Gary Scott Thompson, Erik Bergquist, and David Ayer, is full of nonsense that builds into a creed these racers live by, but it gets the plot from A to B to Z, and has occasional moments of wit in there.

The cast all do what they have to. Paul Walker is likeable enough in the main role, Vin Diesel is a big man who growls a lot, Jordana Brewster looks pretty, Michelle Rodriguez does that scowl-gurn thing as the tough woman once again. There's also Rick Yune, Chad Lindberg, the great Ted Levine, Ja Rule, Noel Gugliemi (you may not recognise the name, but you'll know his face) and Matt Schulze (playing a douchebag who also happens to be the one person that is right about the character played by Walker).

Unsurprisingly, the soundtrack features a mix of loud rock and dance/hip-hop tunes with a strong bassline. It's what you'd expect for a movie about cars with stereo systems that cost more than most people's first runaround. What is surprising is how bad some of the processed shots are with some of the driving scenes akin to something from the 1950s. But, of course, you're not supposed to be looking out of the windows, you're supposed to be looking at the attractive stars and their attractive cars.

It's good fun, there are some enjoyable race sequences and good stuntwork on display, and, as I'm not a "gearhead", I'd say you can add an extra point if you're REALLY into cars. The best is yet to come though, and this should be viewed as the starting point for a franchise that would go from strength to strength (even the weaker instalments don't stop it from easily being the best movie series built around Vin Diesel).

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Prime Time: Street Kings (2008)

Street Kings is a gritty cop thriller directed by David Ayer AND based on a story by James Ellroy so, basically, if you go into it expecting any of the main characters to be unselfishly trying to do good in a bad world then you've never experienced any previous stories from either man. But, just in case there was any doubt, the whole thing helps to let viewers know what they are in for when the main character gets beaten up by some criminals and has his car stolen, which we then discover is all part of a plan to allow him to find where the crooks are holed up, with young female kidnap victims being kept there until they can be moved/sold on, and he then gets to barge in, shooting to kill. It's a good deed, in the grand scheme of things, but it's also symptomatic of the way this character acts. He'd also had a couple of drinks beforehand. He wasn't interested in any due process. He is someone being watched with interest by those who investigate such individuals in the force.

All of this is just a taster to the rest of the film, of course, which follows Detective Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) as he tries to keep doing the job the way he prefers to do it while keeping himself protected from the prying eyes of those who want him stopped. He's helped in this regard by his captain (Forest Whitaker). One of the people wanting him stopped is his ex-partner, Detective Terrence Washington (Terry Crews), and things start to look even stickier for Ludlow when he and Washington are caught in a seemingly random shoot-out. Washington is killed, and Ludlow wants to find those who did it. But those who know Ludlow's behaviour think it would be best for all concerned if the case was dropped and the shooters left to get themselves arrested or killed on some other occasion.

Although there are plenty of beats here that are very familiar to fans of Ayer's work, Street Kings does turn into something slightly different once it gets beyond the opening third act. It's still not a million miles away from anything else the director has done, but the more interesting developments stop it from feeling like nothing more than a tired rehash. You can feel the Ellroy heart beating through most of the runtime, once that opening act is out of the way, and the screenplay put together by Ellroy, Kurt Wimmer, and Jamie Moss is solid in terms of the plotting, pacing, and character development. That's not to say that it's always believable, not at all, but there's enough done to distract you from/let you forgive the less believable moments.

Reeves is very good in the lead role. He's not on top form, it's always a bit harder to believe him as someone with such a murky moral code, but he does well enough. Whitaker gives one of his standard turns, and is good enough, and Crews does enough to show himself as a viable threat to his ex-partner before the shooting takes him out of the film. The rest of the cast is full of great performers, although they are not all used as well as they could be. Chris Evans is the highlight, playing the detective in charge of the shooting investigation who ends up allowing Reeves to help him, and you also get Hugh Laurie with an American accent again, and Jay Mohr, John Corbett, and Amaury Nolasco playing the main colleagues who accept that getting the job done often means breaking some rules. Naomie Harris and Martha Higareda try their best, despite being given the usual short shrift that women tend to get in Ayer movies, and there are good little moments for Cedric The Entertainer, Common, and The Game.

Far from essential viewing, this remains a film I would highly recommend to those who like this particular subgenre. The various elements are well put together, it feels like something a bit different for Reeves, and the ending is surprisingly satisfying when everything eventually pays off.

7/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Bright (2017)

People have been rushing to call Bright one of the worst films of 2017. It's not. It's not even the worst thing that Netflix have done. Not by a long shot. It's not even the worst thing that director David Ayer has done. People have also been rushing to call this out as a reworking of Alien Nation. Okay, that's a bit harder to deny. Essentially a blend of Alien Nation, Training Day, and World Of Warcraft, this is a messy, fun film. It gets a number of things wrong, but also gets quite a bit right.

Will Smith plays a cop named Daryl Ward, unhappy because he's been paired up with an orc (Jakoby, played by Joel Edgerton). He's also unhappy because he's about to go back into service after recovering from a gunshot wound, a wound perpetrated by a criminal that he believes his unwanted partner let go free. That has to be pushed to the bottom of his list of priorities, however, when the pair find themselves getting their hands on a magical artefact that lots of people are willing to kill for.

What works well here? Well, if you buy into the main conceit (life going on as usual in a world that happens to also have elves, orcs, fairies, etc living alongside humans), most of it. I am pleased to see that, with this and Suicide Squad, Ayer has convinced Smith to once again spend some time in roles that work well with his charisma and cockiness. He isn't stretching himself here but he's suited to the role. Edgerton is even better, despite working through a load of make up that makes him unrecognisable. The world that the two inhabit is nicely realised, with a lot of minor details and casual snippets of dialogue helping to flesh things out. There are also some really good action beats. Perhaps not as many as it needs, but the set-pieces are very well done.

What doesn't work? Well, the script by Max Landis seems eager to throw as much into the pot as possible, which is especially obvious in a few opening scenes that overstay their welcome before the film starts to find its feet. There's also one major moment that is lifted almost completely from Training Day. It felt like a bit of a push then, it feels even more implausible here.

And you also have a supporting cast that feels largely wasted. Noomi Rapace has a good presence, she's the main villain of the piece, but it would have been nice to see her pop up for more than just a few scenes in the second half of the film. As for the other police officers we see here and there, none of them make an impression, even when involved in some pretty major scenes.

If you like Ayer movies then you should like this. Despite the characters and plot incorporating a number of fantastical elements, this is typical of his kind of stuff. Of course, some people may not enjoy his sensibilities being mixed up with orcs and elves and the like. I found it worked surprisingly well. I am already looking forward to the sequel - Fantastic Beasts And How To F**k Them Up.

7/10

Bright is on Netflix. Other David Ayer movies are available here (UK) and here (USA)

Sabotage (2014)

Despite the addition of guns and gore, Sabotage is little more than another riff on And Then There Were None, a fine thriller by Agatha Christie. A group of people are invited to come together, their numbers start to dwindle, and everyone wonders whodunnit. I'm not sure if Christie first came up with the concept, in fact I highly doubt it, but she seemed to package everything in a way that was much more desirable to mass consumers. Unlike David Ayer, who seems to package everything in layers of unpleasantness and misanthropy. That sometimes pays off, and I actually like most of his movies, but not in this case.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the leader of a crack undercover team of DEA agents. They kick down doors where angels fear to tread. And the film opens with them setting themselves up for a nice payday. They're raiding a major drug den, containing a MAJOR pile of money, and skimming about $10M off the top for themselves. Unfortunately, the money then goes missing, the team are investigated, and nobody is happy as they are forced to spend a fair bit of time sitting on their hands, as it were. Things could be looking up, however, when the investigation is ended and the team can go back to doing what they do best. Which is when someone starts killing them off, one by one. And it must be someone good, because these guysare trained to stay alive in some dangerous situations.

Starting off strong, the first 5-10 minutes are pretty great, Sabotage quickly starts dropping in quality with each scene, all the way to a finale that it's hard to care about. That's not to say that there aren't moments of easy entertainment. The nasty deaths are a highlight, and you do (or . . . . should, hopefully) at least want to find out who the killer is. It's just a shame that the rest is such a mess, with a script, written by Ayers and Skip Woods, as weak as any I can think of in recent years. The macho posturing bullshit starts to grate after that opening is over and done, and that's pretty much all that the rest of the movie has to offer.

If you want an object lesson in how to waste a potentially great cast then this is a movie to watch with a pen and notepad beside you. Arnie is the leader of the gang, so he fares better than the rest, but Mireille Enos, Sam Worthington, Terrence Howard, Joe Manganiello, Josh Holloway, Max Martini and Kevin Vance are just one mass of muscular douchebags waiting for their potential deaths. Enos is particularly ill-treated, especially considering what a kick-ass first impression she makes in the opening sequence. And we get poor Olivia Williams struggling, both with an American accent and the fact that she has to be a tough investigating officer one moment and then warming to big Arnie the next. In comparison, Harold Perrineau, playing her partner, comes out of the whole thing relatively unscathed. Relatively.

You get some gunfire, you get some blood and guts, you get the eye-rollingly frustrating cliche of tough men and women who work hard and play hard, and you get one or two minor twists to enjoy. What you don't get are characters that you'll enjoy spending time with. Not a one, which leads to the growing apathy that will stay with you even during those last 20 minutes or so. You may as well watch the Beastie Boys video instead, which is much more fun.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Sabotage-Blu-ray-DVD-DIGITAL-UltraViolet/dp/B00JU94ZPS/ref=tmm_blu_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1416355373

Dark Blue (2002)

It's April 1992. A turbulent time for Los Angeles, with all eyes watching the trial of the police officers accused in the beating of Rodney King. If those men are acquitted, the whole city might just burn. Kurt Russell stars as Eldon Perry, a policeman who was brought up by gunslingers and sees himself as a man who does a lot of things wrong to get the right results. His superior (Brendan Gleeson) agrees, he knows that whenever he wants ANY mess cleaned up he can ask Perry to get it done. Unfortunately, many other people view Perry as a monster including his wife (Lolita Davidovich), his young partner (Scott Speedman) and an officer (Ving Rhames) intent on uncovering the truth about a recent shooting incident and, in turn, corruption within the LAPD. In fact, as the movie unfolds, Perry starts to think about his own actions and how others view him. He starts to suspect that they may be right.

Written by James Ellroy and David Ayer, this is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from the writers of L.A. Confidential and Training Day, respectively. Eldon Perry is a larger than life character, a bit of a bully and a braggart even to those he loves, and his moral compass has been thrown so far out of whack that it's unsure whether or not he can find his direction again. Ron Shelton does a great job in the director's chair, allowing for the actors to do their best with the material while he makes sure that all of the threads are winding together to complete the big finale.

Russell excels in the lead role, it's arguably his best performance from his 21st century filmography. He IS a bit of a monster and a horrible person, overall, but he's also a fully fleshed-out character with moments that show that he does have a heart (one scene with him being yelled at by Gleeson really starts to make him slightly sympathetic, while another involving Davidovich reading out a letter to him turns into something unexpectedly affecting). Speedman is okay in his role, he's young and acts naive enough and that's what's needed of him. Gleeson is superb, but Gleeson is always superb. In this movie, however, he's even more superb than usual, his performance sharpened by the gradual development of his true character. Ving Rhames, ahhhh Ving Rhames, he gives a subdued, sweet performance that reminds you of the actor who once seemed so great. Why did he ever start to take roles in every other Straight To Disc (or STD, if you will) piece of nonsense? I'll never know. Thankfully, there will always be performances like this one to look back on. Lolita Davidovich and Jonathan Banks have their supporting roles that allow them one or two moments to shine. And shine they do. Michael Michele may have the most thankless role, but she does okay with it.

Putting these characters together and seeing how things unfold makes for a solid drama. Setting everything on the brink of those 1992 L.A. riots makes for something much more. It's tense, it's incendiary and it's an unflinching reminder of just how easily corruption can insidiously filter through even the most well-meaning of people.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share