The Brotherhood, the elders of the Russian mafia in America, solemnly gather for a war council in Chicago.

“We are facing a devil,” the mobster called Symon (Andrej Kaminsky) intones. And those gathered round him pause to hastily themselves — pious murderers, drug dealers and sex traffickers fearing the worst.

They’ve crossed Jason Statham. And we all know what that means.

Welcome to David Ayer World at the movies, a thriller where the mayhem is masterly, where guns are fetishized, sex traffickers sell to perverts in cape, ponytail and top hat, where the Russian villains aare in charge and the cops are on the take, where old military comrades get three scenes and the pub, nightclubs and bars are production-designed to death — pulsing lights, beautiful dancers and drugs, where gaudy mobsters mix and perhaps mate.

Ayer, of “Harsh Times” and “End of Watch,” co-scripted “A Working Man” with Sly Stallone, who would have certainly taken the starring role in this “Taken” variation 25 years ago. Their embellishments on Chuck Dixon’s novel render this vengeance/rescue thriller both more and less than standard issue Statham.

Statham plays Levon, a construction site supervisor for the Garcia family construction company, the guy whose daily pep talk to the crew is “Let’s all go home with the same amount of fingers we came with.”

He sleeps in his F-150 pickup, as often as not. Widowed, he’s spending all his money on lawyers in a custody fight with his father-in-law over his little girl (Isla Gie).

But there are signs that he’s more than the sum of his circumstances. A gang shows up to intimidate a co-worker, Levon gives them a beating with whatever is at hand — a bucket of nails, for instance. The street-sweeper shotgun? Hey, it’s Chicago. Don’t leave home without it.

So when we see the daughter (Arianna Rivas) of bosses Carla (Noemi Gonzalez) and Joe (Michael Peña), targeted, stalked and kidnapped on a night of celebrating completing “one semester” of college, we know who they’re turning to.

He can protest “I’m a different person, now.” But we know Royal Marine Levon will be kicking ass and taking names, not selling “cartoon balloons in town.”

He consults with his blind archer mate Gunny, a fellow veteran (David Harbour) for reasons only a cut-and-paste screenwriter can justify.

And things get ugly in a hurry as Levon waterboards a complicit bartender, meets his first Russian (Jason Flemyng) and crosses every line there is to cross, and faces the wrath of The Brotherhood.

“Who are you?” and “What are you?” will be asked as he kicks, knocks, slices and dices every Ivan who isn’t on the White House payroll in search of plucky coed Jessie.

The violence is in-your-face the sets are striking and the villains are cartoonishly-dressed clowns even as the plot features gaps and lapses that upend any logic the journey from A-to-B that the formula demands.

And the one-liners are “thought we would have a little chat” canned, but delivered with Statham relish.

“Do you know who I am?”

“No. Should I?”

It works, in that arch-action-vehicle-built on-cliches sort of way.

And Statham delivers the requisite sadistic beatings, stabbings and shootings as he and we walk the predictable primose path down to the morgue, or the sex traffickers’ abandoned mansion hook-up party where it all comes to a head — one of them wearing a bedazzled festive top hat.

Rating: R, violence, sex trafficking, drugs, profanity

Cast: Jason Statham, Arianna Rivas, Jason Flemyng, Eve Mauro, Noemi Gonzalez, Michael Peña and David Harbour.

Credits: Directed by David Ayer, scripted by Sylvester Stallone and David Ayer, based on a novel by Chuck Dixon. An MGM release.

Running time: 1:56