A Working Man: The Citizen Kane of Guys Who Kill People with Rebar

Workin This Man

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The greatest movie of all time? Probably.

Cinema has been declared dead about forty-seven times in the past two decades. Every time Marvel released a new CGI space hamster or Scorsese dropped a four-hour funeral parade, critics dusted off the “film is over” obituary. Forget your superhero sequels. Forget your arthouse Oscar bait. Forget Citizen Kane, which, spoiler alert, was about a sled. Cinema has finally peaked, and it peaked with a fluorescent vest and steel-toed boots. Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about A Working Man. Like a jackhammer of epic blood shed, A Working Man has arrived. Starring the only human alive tough enough to make drywall look like Shakespeare: Jason Statham.

This is not just a movie. It is an OSHA violation captured on film. It is a union grievance turned into Seneca. It is the Sistine Chapel, but instead of God touching Adam’s hand, it’s a foreman named Levon Cade crushing a loan shark’s skull with a cement bucket.

The Greatest Plot of All Time Explained

Levon Cade, an ex-Royal Marine Commando, now runs a Chicago construction site. He wears Carhartt, drinks coffee out of a thermos the size of a fire hydrant, and smolders at drywall like it personally wronged him. Also, minor detail, he kills people. Lots of people. Like, so many people that the Chicago PD should probably put “Foreman with Anger Management Issues” on their most-wanted list.

And yet, the movie frames this as… totally normal. “Oh, your wife died tragically and you’re fighting for custody of your daughter? Sure, go ahead and use a backhoe as a medieval catapult. We’ll allow it.”

A Working Man: Why It’s the Greatest Film of the Last 50 Years

1. Authenticity. Nobody has ever captured the soul of a construction foreman better. The constant yelling. The permanent five o’clock shadow. The ability to fix a leaking pipe with one hand while choking out a hitman with the other. That’s cinema, baby.

   
   

2. Scriptwriting Genius. Every line is either a growl, a curse, or “hand me the impact driver.” Aaron Sorkin dreams of writing dialogue this sharp.

   
   

3. Practical Effects. Forget CGI. When Levon Cade throws a mobster into wet concrete, you feel it. That man is in there until the next condo development.

   
   

4. Moral Depth. At its core, the movie asks the oldest question in art: “How many bodies can one man bury under a jobsite before HR notices?”

   
   

5. Thanks, Stallone. Who else could’ve birthed this gem of blue-collar bloodshed? Stallone is the Michelangelo of “guy punches drywall, guy kills gangster.” He saw John Wick and said, “Cool, but what if he had a union pension plan?”

Critical Reception

Roger Ebert would’ve given this four stars, no hesitation. Scorsese is probably mad he didn’t think of it first. And every construction worker in America has quietly nodded and said, “Yeah, checks out.”

Conclusion

A Working Man isn’t just a film. It’s a spiritual experience. It’s the reason cinema still matters. Fifty years from now, film schools will stop showing Citizen Kane and start teaching students how to strangle someone with an extension cord in a way that is both brutal and emotionally resonant. So let’s raise a steel-toed boot in salute: to Levon Cade, to Stallone, and to the only film brave enough to say, “What if the foreman was the final boss?”

A Working Man isn’t just art. It’s the movie. It’s the reason project deadlines exist. It’s the reason OSHA was invented. It’s the film that proves cinema doesn’t need capes or CGI. All it needs is Jason Statham, a hard hat, and the willpower to pour 300 cubic yards of concrete before lunch.

So keep your foreign films, keep your superhero universes, keep your melodramas about trans men staring at oceans thinking of transitioning back. I’ll take A Working Man. The only movie where Jason Statham fights corruption, gravity, and OSHA violations at the same time.

Five stars. Certified masterpiece. And yes, I’ll be wearing my hard hat to the sequel.