If the final film is a sturdy, forgettable Jason Statham vehicle, the workprint is Killing Them Softly meets Blue Collar —messy, angry, and broke. Watch it for the alternate ending (no, I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say Levon doesn’t walk into the sunset; he walks into a precinct’s holding cell). Then ask yourself: what did the studio sand away? The answer is truth .

★★★★☆ (for historians and masochists) Rating (Final Cut): ★★☆☆☆ (for airplane viewing only) Want a deeper cut? Compare the two versions’ treatment of the daughter’s agency—the workprint gives her a secret hammer of her own.

The workprint runs 18 minutes longer. Watermarks crawl across the frame. Temp music (jarringly lifted from 70s Italian crime flicks) replaces the final orchestral score. Several VFX shots are just wireframes or green voids. But here’s the twist—the missing polish is the point.

The workprint dedicates 12 minutes to Levon trying to get his crew’s stolen payroll back from a low-level union rep— before the main kidnapping plot even begins. It’s slow. It’s bureaucratic. It’s a brilliant deconstruction of how the working class is forced to solve systemic problems with personal violence. The final cut reduces this to a 90-second montage. A travesty.

Here’s an interesting, critical review of A Working Man (workprint), written from the perspective of a genre film enthusiast who’s seen both the final cut and the leaked rough version. The Sweat-Stained Soul of “A Working Man”: Why the Workprint Works Harder Than the Final Cut