Director: James Hawes
Writer: Ken Nolan, Gary Spinelli
Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) worked at the CIA in the Division of Decryption and Analysis. One day, his wife Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan) was killed in cold blood in a bloody terrorist situation in London. Using the tools at his disposal, Charlie was able to identify her killers as: Sean Schiller (Michael Stuhlbarg), Mishka Blazhic (Marc Rissmann) and Gretchen Frank (Barbara Probst). However, CIA Dep. Director Moore (Holt McCallany) won't budge.
So far, it is a typical tale of corruption among the black-ops top brass of the CIA. These illegal operations were unknown to the new Director O'Brien (Julianne Nicholson), and apparently, tolerated by the previous directors before her. It was here that the story sprung its big surprise -- good ole computer-nerd Charlie wanted to kill the three terrorists by himself! So, Heller mustered enough bravado to blackmail his bosses to get him trained for the job, under Col. Henderson (Laurence Fishburne).
The filmmakers ask us to suspend our disbelief, and boy, did they push it. Charlie was able to track his targets to an allergy clinic in Paris, a suspended swimming pool in Madrid, and a Russian boat in Primorsk. He was even able to track down his online source of intel, codenamed Inquiline (Caitriona Balfe) in Instanbul. Malek managed to hold my attention. Fishburne was as cool as ever. However, the 123-minute running time did feel long. 7/10
Director: David Ayer
Writers: Sylvester Stallone, David Ayer
Levon Cade (Jason Statham) is the leader of the construction workers hired by the company owned by Joe and Carla Garcia (Michael Pena and Neomi Gonzalez). One day, their daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) was kidnapped by goons while she was out partying with friends. Levon used his extraordinary skills as a former Royal Marine to infiltrate the organization run by Russian gangster Symon (Andrej Kaminsky) who had abducted her.
For additional emotional connection, Ayers also gave Levon family issues to worry about. He had to share custody of his daughter Meredith (Isla Gie) with his father-in-law Dr. Jordan Roth (Richard Heap) when his daughter, Meredith's mother, passed away. With 30 minutes of the film to go, we still meet Levon's blind old friend Gunny (David Harbour) who supplied him with his weapons and agreed to babysit Meredith while her dad went after the bad guys.
The rescue plot was actually quite simple, but to prolong the running time Ayer made Levon Cade jump through several hoops of Russian mafia sons and henchmen before he actually found Jenny. This is the second project in a row for writer-director Ayer with star Jason Statham after their box-office hit "The Beekeeper" released in January 2024. "Beekeeper" already has a sequel in the works, and "Working Man" looks like it is following suit. 6/10
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