Jason Statham’s Other Jobs, Ranked

Jason Statham does seem to have a tendency to star in movies that are just job titles, like this past weekend’s new release, A Working Man. Remarkably, he’s even starred in two movies with the word “job” in the title. To put this in perspective, Samuel L. Jackson has appeared in the ballpark of 150 movies over his career and the word “job” appears in their titles zero times. Jason Statham, in other words, is the Bruce Springsteen song of film actors. This translates to his output as well as to Statham himself, who year after year rolls up his sleeves and goes to work to entertain us with a lot of remarkably similar plot constructs.

You see, when Statham stars in a movie called, say, Assembly Line, yes, he may start out working on the assembly line down at the General Motors plant, but, in reality, he’s an assassin or a secret spy or someone you go to when there’s no other place to turn. At the very least, Statham’s character is going to be trained in some sort of martial art. Statham has never starred in a movie called Assembly Line, but for a split second you thought he might’ve. (This has become such a regular occurrence, the good folks over at MGM even made Statham his own LinkedIn profile.)

In David Ayer’s A Working Man, Statham plays Levon Cade, a humble Chicago construction worker who, in the first five minutes of the film, throws a bucket of nails at some criminals who are causing trouble at the construction site. Levon’s boss, Joe (Michael Peña), has a big problem: his daughter, Jenny (Arianna Rivas), has been kidnapped by human traffickers. As it turns out, Levon was in the Royal Marines and Joe has nowhere else to turn.

So, for the people out there who fit inside the Venn diagram for both “I like Jason Statham movies” and “I am interested in the job mentioned in the title of the movie,” we went through a number of “Jason Statham has a job” movies to determine how accurate the title of the movie is to what Statham actually does in the movie. (Unfortunately, Assembly Line does not qualify since Statham, to date, has not appeared in a movie with that title. But there’s always hope.) The below ranking has nothing to do with the actual quality of the movie itself, but everything to do with whether we get to see Jason Statham perform the job promised in the title. That’s it.

7. The Mechanic

Okay, so you love Jason Statham and you love everything about the profession of mechanic, so this should be your dream movie, right? You go in with visions of Statham as Arthur Bishop in the garage down at the local Phillips station, tuning up a Winnebago. Later, covered in grease, he goes over to the old soda machine for a well-earned refreshment – probably some sort of off-brand black cherry soda. And surely his knowledge of fixing automobiles will come in handy later? The chips are down, there will be no escape for Arthur this time. But wait, is that a broken down 1995 Ford Probe sitting in a ditch? Look, there’s just no way even a mechanic as skilled as Arthur Bishop is going to make that car run again. Especially since the only tool Arthur has on him is a spoon. And a plastic spoon at that. But wait, no, it’s actually a plastic spork. And with this alone, you better believe Author Bishop got that Ford Probe working. And somehow now it’s fitted with machine guns. He truly is a great mechanic.

Unfortunately, that is not what happens. Despite its title and a pretty easy setup, Arthur Bishop is in no way, shape, or form a mechanic in the traditional sense. The title refers to his proficiency as an assassin, and the first time we meet him in the film, he’s drowning a cartel boss in a pool.

There is one obligatory scene of Arthur working on his 1966 Jaguar E-Type out in his garage. So, that’s nice — when Arthur needs to wind down, he works on his car as a hobby. Except, turns out that’s not even true because, as we find out later (spoiler for a 14-year-old movie), he was planting a bomb in the car in case he was double crossed, which he was.

Verdict: Do not watch The Mechanic if you want to watch Jason Statham employed as a mechanic.

6. The Bank Job

Statham’s Terry Leather doesn’t work at a bank at all, sorry. He runs a used car lot in Roger Donaldson’s film, based loosely on a true story. Unlike The Mechanic, though, there are at least some scenes that take place inside a bank.

Terry finds himself in some serious gambling debt and accepts an offer from an old friend (Saffron Burrows) to hire a crew and rob a bank, which involves a lot of drilling and digging from an adjacent store on the same block. If the name of this movie was The Tunnel Digger, well, now we’re talking. But, it’s not. The plot involves risqué photos of someone in the royal family being used as collateral, and poor Terry and his nitwit crew were tricked into trying to steal these from the bank instead of money. It’s actually a pretty good movie and a bit of a departure for Statham, but unfortunately, for the sake of this ranking, that’s two movies in a row where Statham doesn’t actually work in the profession mentioned in the title.

Verdict: Do not watch The Bank Job if you want to watch Jason Statham employed at a bank.

5. The Transporter

Now we’re getting somewhere: yes, Jason Statham’s Frank Martin works as a transporter. For an agreed upon fee — and a very strict set of rules — Frank will transport whatever cargo a client needs transported. The film opens with a pretty nifty sequence in which Frank has been hired as a getaway driver after a robbery. But the criminals have broken one of his rules about changing the agreement by adding one extra criminal. Frank refuses to budge his car because it was meticulously customized for a certain weight and adding another human being will result in not enough gas and eventual capture. Which means one of the criminals has to be left behind, in a pretty brutal way. All of this establishes that Frank Martin does not mess around. He is a professional and the best of the best.

Of course, on his very next job, he breaks every rule that was just established and the film immediately loses the cool, distant professionalism of Frank’s driving, transporting, and delivering capabilities and becomes about Frank and his former package, Lai (Shu Qi), trying to take down an international human trafficking ring. (Which, yes, is a similar plot to A Working Man.) So 20 minutes into the film, Frank is already done transporting anything. And it was a better movie when he was transporting.

Verdict: You will get to watch Jason Statham employed as a transporter, but not for very long.

4. The Italian Job

In the original 1969 version of The Italian Job, starring Michael Caine (great movie, with a literal cliffhanger ending that takes place on an actual cliff), the climax of the plot involves a heist to steal gold in the city of Turin, Italy. A good portion of the film takes place in Italy and the film was partially filmed in Italy.

In the 2003 remake of The Italian Job, Statham plays an expert driver, this time named Handsome Rob. Though we can concede that Jason Statham is a handsome man, in the remake only the opening scene takes place in Italy, with most of the film set in Los Angeles. Technically, Handsome Rob does work a job in Italy, but only briefly. Still, the film ranks ahead of The Transporter because at least Handsome Rob continues to be an expert driver for the duration of the film.

Verdict: You will get to watch Jason Statham work a job in Italy, but not for very long.

3. A Working Man

There’s a scene in A Working Man in which Jason Statham’s Levon Cade is trying to infiltrate a drug ring while searching for his boss’s abducted daughter. During this interaction, Levon is accused of being a cop. But after a hearty handshake with the leader of the drug operation, he’s told, in reference to his strong hands, “You ain’t a cop, you’re a working man.”

Yes, Construction Worker might have been a too on-the-nose title for this particular Statham go-around, but Levon also doesn’t do much actual construction. When he’s at work, he’s mostly walking around, and stopping an occasional fight with a bucket of nails. When Levon’s boss asks him to find his missing daughter, Levon turns him down, saying he’s just not that person anymore. This would have been good news for anyone hoping to see more scenes of Levon doing construction work — tormented by his past life in the military that he’s trying to outrun, and the grim duty he now knows he just must do. But, alas, Levon changes his mind pretty quickly and before we know it, he’s torturing and killing Russian mobsters. Nevertheless, the whole film plays on the trope that, hey, Levon is just a working man. He is told to wear a suit for a meeting with a high-ranking Russian mobster. What? Do you think a working man like Levon owns a suit?

Verdict: You won’t get to watch Jason Statham do much construction work, but he does maintain he’s a working man for the duration of the film.

2. The Beekeeper

Yes, the “Beekeeper” in the title refers to a secret assassin group in which Statham’s Adam Clay used to be a member. A group so fearsome that it makes SEAL Team Six look like wimps. (The movie uses a word that is not “wimp.”) But Adam Clay is also the kind of beekeeper who keeps bees. This is outstanding. Unlike A Working Man and The Transporter’s grim plots involving human trafficking, The Beekeeper (also directed by A Working Man’s David Ayer) tells a ludicrous story about a telemarketing scam targeting elderly people and wiping out their savings. Okay, that part isn’t ludicrous, but the fact that the telemarketing company is run by the President of the United States’s son (Josh Hutcherson) because he needed to scam people out of their money in order pay for his mother’s campaign bills — the President of the United States, mind you — is absolutely fantastic.

Verdict: If You’ve never seen The Beekeeper, you should see The Beekeeper. And, yes, you will get to see Jason Statham collect honey and put them in jars for his neighbors.

1. Spy

The name of the movie is Spy. Jason Statham’s Rick Ford is a spy. Melissa McCarthy’s Susan Cooper is not a spy. She does work for the CIA, but is not a field agent. When her beloved colleague, Bradley Fine (Jude Law) is apparently killed in action, Susan is finally put in the field to track down the alleged killer. And the ultra macho (and sometimes clueless) Rick Ford is having none of this. An untested agent like Susan in the field? Rick Ford storms out and decides to run his own mission.

This actually just might be Statham’s best role, an almost comedic meditation on the role he usually plays, only no secret blue-collar job this time. He’s a spy at the beginning of the movie and he’s a spy at the end. And his comedic timing against a master like Melissa McCarthy is pretty remarkable — and he’s really not changing that much from what he does in most of his other films.

It’s fun to watch Jason Statham punch and kick criminals every year, but he really should consider doing more movies like this. He’s very good in them.

Verdict: If you want to watch Jason Statham play a spy, this is your movie. But come to think of it, if you want to watch a Jason Statham movie, you can’t go wrong with any of these. (Also, Statham is way overdue for his third movie with the word “job” in the title.)