Nobody (2021)
Spoilers follow.
Movie rating: 8/10
Who would have thought Bob Odenkirk could play such a badass action hero? Best known for his role as Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and as a longtime comedy writer, Odenkirk floored me with his performance in Nobody as Hutch Mansell—a seemingly ordinary schlub who reveals some hidden talents after burglars target his home and family. To quote Liam Neeson’s character in Taken, you might say Hutch has a very particular set of skills, skills he has acquired over a very long career, skills that will make him a nightmare for people like the villains in this movie. Scene after scene of extreme violence ensues.
Put simply, this is one of the best action movies of recent years. Writer Derek Kolstad and director Ilya Naishuller expertly set up Hutch as a mild-mannered office type and family man ground down by his dull routine. When confronting thieves in his home holding him at gunpoint, Hutch shrinks away from violence even when he has the upper hand, allowing the burglars to strike his teenage son and escape. But his actions all makes sense later once we understand who Hutch really is.
Our first inkling that there may be more to him than meets the eye comes when Hutch manages to track down and confront the couple who attempted to rob him. But it’s when a gang of drunken hoodlums board the bus he’s riding home that Hutch fully unleashes his pent-up rage, in one of the most impressive fight scenes I’ve seen in a while.
The fight scene on the bus in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was a highlight of that film, but I vaguely remember critics comparing it to a similar scene in Nobody. Having finally seen both, I can see that each bus scene is great in its own way. The scene in Nobody, however, is not bloodless PG-13 action, but visceral, bone-crunching R-rated violence. That’s as it should be. If movies are going to depict violence, they shouldn’t hold back on showing us the results. When compared to Shang-Chi, the bus fight in Nobody also generates more doubt and tension in the audience that Hutch can win, since Odenkirk is much older and the movie had earlier established him as seemingly weak and adverse to violence.
There’s a fair amount of humour in Nobody, much of it provided by cool one-liners from Odenkirk that recall old-school action movies from the ’80s and ’90s. My favourite has to be his comment before he starts his fight on the bus: “I hope these assholes like hospital food.” When he fights back against the Russian mob boss Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksei Serebryakov) who has targeted him and his family, Odenkirk’s eyes twinkle as he taunts the villain, a murderous psychopath we love to hate. Hutch eventually lures the boss and his goons to the metal fabrication factory he previously worked at. Backed by a plethora of Home Alone-style death traps and two key allies, Hutch leads a final confrontation where the action threatens to become almost too over-the-top. But at a tight 92 minutes, the movie never outstays its welcome. The action, writing, and performances always kept me glued to the screen.
If there was one thing I rolled my eyes at, it was the presence of yet another Russian villain in a Hollywood movie or TV show. Western media and governments have so demonized Russia in the last decade or so, particularly after the 2016 U.S. election and the media’s embrace of the Russiagate conspiracy theory, that much of the audience is primed to enjoy seeing our hero mow down Russian villains. Portrayals of Russians in Western cinema have been largely negative for more than a century since the 1917 revolution. Generations have grown up with Russians portrayed as sinister spies, evil military officers, or mobsters, to the point where many Westerners assume the worst of anyone speaking with a Russian accent. That was before official Russophobia went into overdrive with the war in Ukraine. On the other hand, director Naishuller is Russian himself. And regardless of political context, Serebryakov makes for a great villain, with a memorable intro scene.
Nobody feels like a throwback to the action movies of yore, which were comparatively earthbound with hard-R ratings a matter of course. Over the last two decades, four-quadrant, CGI-drenched PG-13 blockbusters have largely supplanted the old-style action movie. In this context, Nobody is a breath of fresh air and I hope we see more films of its kind in the action genre.