Jason Statham makes a very specific kind of movie. Outside of big-budget studio fare like The Meg and the Fast/Furious movies, a “Jason Statham movie” is best defined as “a blue-collar guy trying to hold down his end gets pushed to the brink and does many murders on behalf of someone else”. Jason Statham heroes are always: 1) working class, 2) military or similarly skilled, 3) loners, 4) whose closest emotional tie is somehow harmed, and 4) only wrecks sh-t on someone else’s behalf. Jason Statham is never trying to save the world. He’s not Tom Cruise, he’s not running his way to victory. His characters are bread-and-butter brawlers, just trying to get justice for like, the old lady down the street.
In the same way I appreciate Gerard Butler’s consistency in playing scientists who aren’t f-cking nerds, I appreciate Jason Statham’s devotion to the working-class hero. I actually appreciate Statham more, because I think it’s a more deliberate choice on his part, I think he actually does have a little of that Tom Cruise thinking in him, where his roles are chosen carefully to fit into a specific oeuvre. Are Jason Statham movies silly? Yes. Frequently and often. But they’re CONSISTENT in a way few action stars are, he’s working on a level comparable to Cruise and Keanu, but we never talk about Statham like we talk about Cruise and Keanu, and I think a lot of that is because, well, his characters, and by extension his movies, aren’t sexy.
Statham doesn’t play an elite assassin operating in a world of elite assassins. He’s not the specialist boy secret agent in the world. He plays bricklayers and truck drivers and chauffeurs and apiarists, and his movies have a similar workmanlike approach as do the blue-collar jobs his characters usually inhabit. Case in point, his latest movie is called A Working Man. We’re not even pretending like he isn’t doing this very specific thing with his films, we’re just straight up acknowledging Jason Statham is the working man’s Keanu.
I’m stoked for A Working Man because 1) it’s reuniting The Beekeeper team, and while The Beekeeper is very silly, it’s also a lot of fun and very entertaining, and 2) I am still cooking this thesis, but I think Jason Statham has, at some point I wasn’t paying attention, turned into one of my favorite movie stars. He’s just doing his specific thing, and I like it every time. Like I look forward to new Statham movies the same way I do new Keanu movies. And just like with Keanu—and Tom Cruise—I wonder how long the fifty-something Statham can keep doing this, and who is the keeper of his flame when he stops. Currently, none of the young action stars are championing blue collar heroes like Statham. Glen Powell, you want in on this?
Anyway, A Working Man looks dumb but also fun and entertaining, and I am always here for good action. That’s another reason I’ve come to love Jason Statham’s movies—he’s devoted to solid, practical action. It doesn’t have the cinematic flair of John Wick, but The Stath consistently delivers visceral, bone-crunching fight scenes (see also: Wrath of Man). I like good action in all its forms, I just wish we talked more about Jason Statham’s style of working-class action star as much as we do the likes of glamorous action heroes like John Wick and Ethan Hunt.
So this is me stumping for Jason Statham: working-class action hero, whose next movie is taking this theme extremely literally.
