John Wick meets Taken meets Home Alone.
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Directed by Ilya Naishuller from a screenplay written by the man behind the John Wick franchise (Derek Kolstad), Nobody is the latest action thriller starring Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Aleksei Serebryakov, RZA and Christopher Lloyd.
Odenkirk is Hutch Mansell, a seemingly ordinary man with two children with his wife Becca (Nielsen). He works at an office with his father-in-law and generally keeps to himself. In the first 10 minutes, Hutch’s life is painted to look mundane – he and his wife have not been intimate in years, his son Blake has no respect for him and only his daughter, Sammy, shows him affection.
One night, a couple break into his house and hold him at gunpoint, demanding money. Hutch gives them his watch, but when they try to leave, Blake tackles one of them. Hutch is about to attack them with a golf club, but stops himself and lets them get away. The incident causes Blake to drift even further away from his father.
Later that day, Sammy asks her father for help finding her bracelet, which Hutch believes the thieves took. Without saying a word, he goes to see his elderly father David (a very badass Christopher Lloyd who shines in the third act), and borrows his old FBI badge and gun to track down the burglars. He finds their apartment and threatens them. On his way home, his bus is stopped by a gang of thugs who threaten a young woman. Hutch uses this opportunity to take out his frustration by savagely beating all of them.
One of the thugs he beat up happened to be the younger brother of a notorious Russian mob boss, Yulian Kuznetsov (Serebryakov). Upon hearing of his brother's incident, Yulian feels an obligation to avenge him and sends a crew to attack Hutch at home.
Turns out, Hutch is actually a former assassin employed to kill people who were considered untouchable or too difficult to arrest and is more than capable of holding his own and fighting back.
This reveal allowed Naishuller to throw Hutch straight into the action seamlessly without having to montage how he jumped from a suburban family man to a cold-blooded killer. The fight scenes are brutal but very necessary to show how good Hutch really is.
It’s worthy to note that Nobody may be first and foremost an action film but it is a very tasteful one with skilled cinematography from Pawel Pogorzelski and brilliant music choices that would make Edgar Wright proud. It’s an action thriller at its finest.
The star of the film of course was perfectly cast and delivered an outstanding performance. Odenkirk excels in the role of an emasculate husband and father who’s secretly a very skilled and feared assassin, a far cry from his Emmy-nominated role as Saul Goodman.
Conclusion, Nobody is a whole lot of fun. What else can you expect from a movie that simply put, is easily described as John Wick meets Taken meets Home Alone?
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