There’s a knack when it comes to showcasing the talents of Jason Statham. The Stath vehicles that work best tend to be the ones that deliver a wink to camera along with a punch to the throat; films that embrace the inherent absurdity of the British star as well as his ability to convincingly dismantle a Russian mafia militia using just his fists and the decorative, wall-mounted skull of an ox.

Statham’s latest picture, in which he stars as Levon Cade, a retired marine turned building contractor required to dust off his murder skills and rescue the kidnapped daughter of his employer, delivers on face-pulverising mayhem. But the fun is undermined by dialogue that is overmasticated, Russian-accented word mulch. In the end, A Working Man takes itself rather too seriously for a movie that unironically uses Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata as a recurring musical motif.

• In UK and Irish cinemas