Sylvester Stallone is one of the longest-running action stars in Hollywood, with too many iconic movie roles to count. Jason Statham, meanwhile, remains one of the few action heroes who can still draw a crowd on name alone. Their recent team-up, 2025’s “A Working Man,” blew everyone away at the box office, and it’s currently tearing it up on Amazon Prime Video, having climbed to the top of the streamer’s movie charts. Stallone supplied the script and Statham stars as a gung-ho, blue-collar hero who used to be a Royal Marine Commando.
“A Working Man” is a movie that seems written specifically for Statham, an actor who has perfected the persona of a downtrodden, everyman hero out to serve painful justice to those who deserve a beating. He stars in the film as Levon Cade, a man whose past was anything but pleasant and who has resigned himself to the quiet life of a construction worker. But when a gang of criminal miscreants abducts the daughter of his boss, Cade decides to embrace his inner demons once more to mete out punishment to a group of twisted kidnappers.
Sure, we’ve seen many movies like this before: An ex-military man who is forced back into a life of violence when a horrific crime hits his doorstep. Heck, Statham himself just recently starred in a similar film, “The Beekeeper.” That turned out to be one of Statham’s best films, and “A Working Man” is right up there among the Brit’s best big screen outings, boasting a stellar script from Stallone and another tour-de-force performance from Statham. In short, if you love a down-and-dirty action thriller and you’re a Prime Video subscriber, it’s time to jump on the “A Working Man” bandwagon.
A Working Man isn’t the first Stallone/Statham team-up
“A Working Man” may be the latest collaboration between Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone, but it’s hardly the only time they’ve worked together. Action fans are probably well familiar with their teamups in front of the camera in the “Expendables” film series (where Stallone might actually be the villain). But there’s another film that featured Stallone as its writer and Statham as its leading man: The 2013 action movie “Homefront.”
This time, Stallone’s script isn’t an original one. Instead, it’s based on a book of the same name by author Charles Logan, who is ironically more known for his science fiction work. “Homefront” centers on a former DEA agent named Phil Broker, who is trying to live a quiet life with his daughter, Maddy. But when the mother of Maddy’s school rival tries to intimidate Broker, it opens up a Pandora’s box that leads to an all-out war with the deranged Gator Bodine (James Franco).
When Gator learns that Broker was involved in the arrest of an old friend during his DEA days, Broker finds himself the target of Gator’s ruthless biker gang, who are out for blood. With “A Working Man” becoming a fan favorite, it’s easy to look at “Homefront” as a spiritual precursor, a film that helped the pair of Stallone and Statham perfect the formula of a working man on a mission of vengeance. If you haven’t seen it and you loved “A Working Man,” it should most certainly be on your to-watch list.