Even though A Working Man is based on a novel by Chuck Dixon, part of me wants to believe that director David Ayer just whipped up another movie like The Beekeeper on the fly. Despite being armed with already-written source material and some screenplay help from Sylvester Stallone, this familiar action-revenge picture has many half-thought ideas. It falters so much between B-movie absurdity and gritty brutality that it never settles on a tone and ends up being a mess, more admirable for its stumbling than its stunting.

Jason Statham strolls through familiar territory in the role of Levon Cade, a former soldier trying to live a simpler life with a construction job. But when Russians kidnap the daughter of his boss (Michael Peña), he has no choice. He has to put aside his peaceful ways and pick up a gun, with plenty supplied by his old buddy Gunny Lefferty, played by David Harbour, in a role where he spends most of his scenes sitting down. Armed with clever tech from his military days, he slaughters his way through the Russian mafia’s onslaught of goons until he gets the girl home safely. Considering how easily Cade carves up the competition and how much they bristle with their idiotic choices in crime and revenge, there’s little suspense in whether or not Statham will get out of this rescue mission alive.

There are a lot of goofy moments in this movie, and there’s a debatable level of how intentional these moments may be. I got a little giddy when Statham’s character is told by some goons assaulting one of his co-workers to buzz off, and the camera zooms in on Statham as the music gets intense. I expected this type of scene, but not to the degree where it’s so brazen to the point of being laughable. As Statham proceeded to bash bad guys with buckets and a pick-ax, I hoped the film would keep up this ridiculousness. That B-movie sauce is sprinkled in a few scenes, as when Cade tries to infiltrate a gang where the leader sits on what looks like either a motorcycle-version of the throne from Game of Thrones or a leftover promotional piece from The Expendables. But these smirk-worthy moments are few and far between, making me almost force laughter in hopes that the misfiring lines will make up for the mundane revenge story that wastes opportunities to play up Cade’s military background and construction experience.

So, there’s a battle between two different films. There’s an off-tone B-movie with ridiculous line delivery. There’s also a by-the-numbers action picture that could serve up some bruised-arm thrills. There is no winner here. The two are at odds with each other in a film that spends more time finding cool guns for Statham to use than giving him any decent one-liners or growth. His traits of a dad trying to prove himself and keep his PTSD in check rarely clash with his journey, where Statham is coated in so much debris by the third act that he’s no longer even playing a character. The film is still a letdown, even on mere violence. If a movie has a scene where the kidnapped woman chews off her attacker’s face, and it doesn’t show you that gruesome moment, even the most forgiving action fans will feel cheated.

A Working Man doesn’t work hard enough to be either gritty or goofy. The potential is all there to be either, and it feels squandered. There’s no tension when the Russians that Cade fights are cartoon characters, picked off so quickly that there’s little time to learn their names. There’s not enough camp to laugh at the stumbling nature, where the misfires become more tedious by the third act than adorable. Jason Statham may be a hard-working action actor, but he’s working with a weak script and uneven direction that does his grits and kicks no favors.