Nobody
UNIVERSALIt’s a familiar scene: a group of thugs are loudly harassing an innocent bystander in the middle of the night. An older, grizzled man watches silently until he’s had enough. He stands up, faces them and empties his gun, bullets clattering on the floor. This catches their attention.
“I’m gonna fuck you up,” he says.
Plenty of film legends and action stars have stood in those shoes, from Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson to Liam Neeson and Bruce Willis. What makes Nobody stand apart is that you aren’t seeing the usual guy dealing out some vigilante justice. It’s 58-year-old Bob Odenkirk this time, who is best known for being a sketch comedy writer and the tragicomic Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. It’s this fact – and perhaps this fact alone – that makes Nobody such an enjoyable and compelling watch.
The familiar plot elements are there. Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) is a mild-mannered everyman who has a wife, two kids and a stable job until outside sources intervene and push him to the edge. It seems cliché, but everything that follows seems up for grabs, laced with dark humor and brutal violence that feels fresh and unexpected. This is because Odenkirk is the lead. If this film had been cast with someone better associated with the genre, there is little doubt that Nobody would have been a routine, dour, and possibly toxic affair. There is also little doubt it would have been this fun.
Part of that fun is realising that there is more to the average, middle-aged Mansell than meets the eye, and watching him succeed and fail at defending himself and his family raises the stakes much higher. As he makes a bigger and bigger mess with the men he has crossed his behavior becomes increasingly controlled but unpredictable. The fights also seem uncomfortably real because Odenkirk opted to do his own choreography and stunts, and as a protective father all it takes is the mention of a “kitty cat bracelet” to make his eyes go black and hit the streets for revenge. To say the least, his outbursts of violence don’t start out in a typical way, and Derek Kolstad’s writing often compliments Odenkirk’s abilities as a comic actor.
It could be expected that Nobody expands into a boisterous, crowd-pleasing and somewhat cartoonish ballet of death, not unlike John Wick series, which Kolstad also penned – here’s to hoping there’s a crossover. What makes it interesting is how the film arrives at its endgame. Things become especially tense and cathartic when Mansell’s family become directly involved, including his elderly father (Christopher Lloyd), his off-the-grid brother (RZA) and his emotionally distant wife (Connie Nielsen).
At the helm is Hardcore Henry’s Ilya Naishuller, who is expanding his expertise in action and blending it with comedy. In Nobody, it can be a difficult line to walk, and sometimes it’s tempting to wonder what the film would be like if it had leaned more one way than the other. Could Nobody have gone broader? Could it have gone darker? If so, would it have worked? Considering the final product, it seems pointless to complain. There are too many sequences and character beats that are worth multiple watches, and without a doubt it has been the most entertaining film to come out this spring.