‘Nobody’ Review: The Reawakening of Violence Inside a Man
FEATURING STELLAR WORK FROM BOB ODENKIRK, AN UNRELENTING PACE, AND WELL-CHOREOGRAPHED ACTION SET-PieCES, ‘NOBODY’ IS AN ENDLESSLY FUN TIME EVEN IF It LACKS DEPTH.
Anyone who thought Bob Odenkirk was just a goofy, funny guy, not to be seen as a potential threat, should heed "Nobody" as a warning: don't mess with him, and certainly don't mess with his family.
"Nobody" stars Odenkirk as Hutch Mansell, a man living in a Los Angeles suburb with his wife (Connie Nielsen) and two children. He seems, initially, like an ordinary middle-aged guy - we're treated to a wash-rinse-repeat montage of what his regular week looks like, from missing the garbage pickup each Tuesday to his mundane job marking invoices at a factory - whose marriage is strained and whose teenage son has a very dry relationship with him. Hutch also cares for his father (Christopher Lloyd) who lives in a retirement community. One night, Hutch's house is broken into by two petty thieves. Though he has the opportunity to subdue them with a golf club, he chooses not to, instead allowing them to leave with the pittance of cash they stole.
Very quickly, however, the film reveals that Hutch has buried a substantial piece of who he is. He communicates with his half-brother Harry (RZA) through a secret frequency on the stereo in his office; he uses his father's old FBI badge and quick wit to get information he needs; and, most critically...he has an inhuman ability to kick ass. This is where the greatest strength of the film, of Ilya Naishuller's direction, and even of Odenkirk's performance comes in: the endlessly entertaining and excellently composed action sequences, which have really been undersold in the trailers. There is an early sequence where Hutch, purely out of frustration takes on a group of drunken, rapey douchebags on a bus. This scene lasts a good eight minutes, where he lays a beatdown, but also isn't a perfect machine, taking his fair share of hits and even getting thrown out of a window in the melee.
It plays like something out of "John Wick" - indeed, Derek Kolstad wrote the screenplay, as he did for that entire trilogy - but with less of a fantastical, isolated universe and more emphasis on (relative) realism. Where John Wick feels like it exists in an alternate world of assassins, shootouts, and carnage, Hutch feels like a guy who could exist in the real world. He knows how to handle himself, but he's also been out of his former life for some time, and has gotten older. And as opposed to Keanu Reeves or Liam Neeson, Odenkirk plays Hutch in a realistic spin on that kind of "older man with a past life of violence coming back into the fold" archetype. He doesn't just come back guns blazing, doing everything with absolute precision. Instead, he has to reawaken piece by piece. We see this unfold over the course of the film, as he begins to make fewer mistakes with each subsequent fight or shootout. It's a commendable idea for a character arc.
Unfortunately, this is really the only kind of progression or depth that the film's story has. There is a Russian mob villain (Aleksei Serebryakov) who sort of just enters the film suddenly and gets entangled with Hutch, which fuels most of the action sequences, but creates little in the way of a story to bridge them together. Hutch's family - his reason for coming back into the fold as a fighter and killer - don't really get any development, though the one interesting thing is how Hutch's wife seems to already know the ins and outs of his past, and adjusts pretty quickly to him returning to the life. There's also a major miscalculation made by starting the film with Hutch in a flash-forward, which robs the movie of any real tension whenever Hutch is faced with a threat.
With that being said, "Nobody" isn't really supposed to be some layered, deeply affecting character drama. It doesn't have any pretensions of reaching for that, and anyone going into it expecting something the likes of Odenkirk's ultimate project, playing layered and morally suspect lawyer Jimmy McGill on "Better Call Saul", is probably going to be disappointed. The general premise of "Nobody" is "Saul Goodman as John Wick," and in that respect, the film absolutely excels.
There has been a lot of talk over the past few years regarding the influence of the "Wick" films, and the way that their elaborately choreographed and stylistic action sequences may or may not impact action filmmaking in the years to come. "Nobody" feels like the first film to effectively ape the "Wick" franchise. These scenes are shot with a high degree of precision, every impact or gunshot is felt, and there are almost no unnecessary cuts. The end result is a visceral and often brutal experience, taken a step above the "Wick" films in the way that very few of these scenes end when you think they are going to, emptying the tank and then still finding a way to have Odenkirk kick even more ass.
It’s also particularly refreshing for Naishuller. His previous feature, “Hardcore Henry”, was a gimmicky hot mess that was so beholden to its concept - an endless action thriller told entirely from the POV of the main character - that its scenes had little, if any room to breathe or be coherent. “Nobody” is a huge improvement on “Hardcore Henry” from a technical and directorial perspective, largely from the fact that it has some of the most coherent and well-thought-out fisticuffs of recent cinema.
Without spoiling which characters join Hutch as the stakes and action ramp up, there's a pretty decent supporting cast of allies here for him to work with. While the internet has buzzed online about making a crossover between "Nobody" and "John Wick", it'd be more interesting to just make a couple of sequels to "Nobody", allowing Odenkirk to continue to extend his action chops and his range as an actor. Hutch Mansell is interesting enough to carry a film, and Odenkirk - doing most of his own stunts and approaching the role with an appropriate level of grit and fury - does some of his most entertaining work here.
All things considered, "Nobody" is a bit thin as far as its story, world-building, and character development are concerned, particularly when compared to its inspirations such as "John Wick" and "Kingsman". However, with a breakneck pace - barely hitting the 90-minute mark and running at full speed for almost every second of that time - as well as exhilarating action and a new side of the always-great Bob Odenkirk, it's more than worth your time to check out tomorrow.