Movies For Breakfast NOBODY Review

Bob Odenkirk gets his own leading role in this John Wick-lite action film.

Synopsis

After beating up a gang of thugs, a retired FBI suburbanite finds himself as the target of a vengeful drug lord.

Review

“Nobody” is the latest film where extreme violence follows a small but unforgiveable act. John Wick started with thugs killing a retired assassin’s dog and so it went for two sequels onward. The catalyst for “Nobody” involves a kitty cat bracelet being stolen in a home robbery. We meet Bob Odenkirk’s Hutch Mansell in the middle of his everyday routine. He wakes up, nearly misses the garbage truck, gets reminded of this by his wife (Connie Nielsen) coupled with a nice cup of joe, works out at the bus stop, heads to work for his father-in-law, heads home, goes to sleep. Rinse and repeat. As we begin to find out, this monotony is practically everything this retired FBI “auditor” could have asked for. A simple, boring life.

As expected, all of this comes tumbling down when a home robbery occurs. Hutch almost slips back into his violent past but then thinks better of it, deciding to not exact revenge on the intruders. The robbers take what they can, bruise the oldest son, leave and then the cops come. From there, it’s a constant stream of badgering and gaslighting that Mansell receives with everyone giving their take on what THEY would’ve done had they been caught in the same situation. What finally pushes Mansell over the edge is his revelation of the aforementioned event – his daughter’s precious bracelet was taken in the robbery.

Hutch, using his former FBI investigative skills, tracks down the robbers’ home and demands the bracelet back at gunpoint. After an emotional change of heart, the film leads to another event which serves as a catalyst for Hutch to use his specific set of skills full-time. Hutch prevents a group of thugs from harassing a young woman on a bus by giving all of them an epic, excruciating beatdown. As it is revealed, one of the beaten thugs is a younger brother to a ruthless drug lord named Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksei Serebryakov, nothing memorable; run-of-the-mill Russian bad guy). You can probably tell where this is going.

Once the action gets going in Nobody, it’s a pretty fun film. As expected, the action scenes are choregraphed well and, surprisingly enough, Odenkirk doesn’t even look out of place as he gun-butts and blows the head off of his enemies. It’s even more surprising to show ol’ Doc Brown himself (Christopher Lloyd, who plays Hutch’s father) with a shotgun in his hand ready to take action. “Nobody” is a film that could be miscategorized as an action comedy. It’s really an action film with comedic sensibilities – there are self-indulgent slow-mo musical scenes of anticipation as Hutch is ready to exact his vengeance, a running gag where Hutch speaks of his enigmatic past and his enemies die away as he is venting, witty one-liners sold on the charm of Odenkirk’s deadpan delivery. But the bottom line of it all is that this film is straight action, no chaser.

The supporting turns in the film are merely spots filled in to create a solid character background for Hutch. Connie Nielsen is relegated to being just the supportive-turned-concerned-turned-alerted wife. The children (played by Gage Munroe and Paisley Cadorath) are just typical kids. Christopher Lloyd is a supporting player with solid, humorous moments. And RZA…is just RZA. This film is a normal, entertaining star vehicle for Odenkirk (sailing high on “Better Call Saul” acclaim) and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Even though it makes the supporting players involved a tad unnecessary.

The straight action “sell” of it can sometimes leave the film at a surface level with no trace of subversion. By the time the credits are rolling, you walk out feeling this a John Wick-lite blockbuster film. Nothing more, nothing less. It helps that the film’s runtime is only 92 minutes. In its straightforward charm, there are really no frills in this film’s decent thrills.

Closing Thoughts
“Nobody” is what you would anticipate it to be. A straightforward entertaining action film with violence, humor and heart. It may not be as influential or impactful as its writer Derek Kolstad’s last successful franchise, John Wick. But it will still prove itself to be an effective, short and sweet popcorn film.

Trailer