A bystander who intervenes to help a woman being harassed by a group of men becomes the target of a vengeful drug lord.
Bob Odenkirk has often played the docile, unassuming has-been who never bothers anyone and just wants to get on with his life, see “Better Call Saul,” “The Post,” and “Fargo,” for proof of that. In the new action film “Nobody,” the film starts off with him playing quiet, mild-mannered suburban husband Hutch Mansell to his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) and father to his children Blake (Gage Munroe) and Abby (Paisley Cadorath). He works as the manager at his father-in-law’s auto body shop and is bored with his daily routine, which also includes a lack of companionship and intimacy from his wife. One night, he is awoken to strange noises coming from downstairs in their home and when he goes to investigate, he is confronted by two masked robbers, a man, and a woman. They demand all his money but he doesn’t have much to spare and tells them to take what little he has. Before they have a chance to leave, Hutch’s son Blake attacks the male bandit but Hutch tells him to leave him alone and they quickly escape into the dark.
After the police arrive and take Hutch’s statement, he tells them he had no intention of causing complications as the female thief had a gun. Blake and Becca are annoyed and frustrated that he didn’t even try to stop them and over the next few days, they become more and more standoffish towards him. One night after his daughter Abby states that her little kitty bracelet is missing, and has been ever since the night of the break-in, he snaps and decides to take matters into his own hands. He manages to track down the two thieves through a tattoo he recognized on the woman’s hand, with the intent of retrieving his daughter’s bracelet, only to find them living in poverty, together with an infant child. Realizing that they weren’t professional thieves, but were desperate for money, he leaves them and boards a bus to get home. Unfortunately, Hutch’s night is about to get a lot more interesting when a group of thugs who belong to a Russian crime syndicate in the city, embark on the vehicle and start pushing and hurling insults at some of the passengers. Hutch finally snaps, has the remaining passengers get off the bus, and singlehandedly sends the entire group of goons to the hospital.
When Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksei Serebryakov), a Russian drug lord and the older brother of Teddy (Aleksandr Pal), one of the thugs who is in critical condition, discovers that Hutch is responsible for his brother’s physical state, he sends his men after him. After they attack his house and try to kill his family, Hutch’s wife and children are left flabbergasted when he takes on the terrorists and kills each and every one of them by himself. We discover that he used to work for the U.S. government as an Auditor, the person that was sent to take out bad guys when all other avenues failed. In order to save his family, he sends Becca and the children to a safe location and enlists the help of his brother Harry (RZA) and father David (Christopher Lloyd), both of whom were Auditors before they too retired from active duty. Yulian becomes more and more infuriated that his men can’t seem to kill one man but when he discovers Hutch’s identification and his past profession, he immediately mobilizes every single man he can round up and they descend on the body shop where Hutch works. Luckily, he and his brother and father have a plan to take them on.
“Nobody” was produced by David Leitch and written by Derek Kolstad, the team responsible for bringing John Wick to life, and the one downside to this iteration, is that it bears too much of a resemblance to John Wick to get a higher rating. When we are first introduced to John Wick, he is grieving for his recently-deceased wife but overall, he doesn’t come across as anything but a lonely widower, trying to get on with his life. Only later do we learn that he is a larger-than-life mythical figure who has the ability to kill anybody, anywhere, and then disappear into the darkness. Hutch Mansell is pretty much introduced the exact same way, he lives with his family in suburbia and works day-to-day in the same boring routine but when his family is attacked, it awakens his suppressed skills and brings to life the dormant killing machine he planned on leaving in the past, something not even his family was aware of. Hutch also deals with a Russian crime syndicate, much like John Wick did in the first film, and in one scene, he even burns the syndicate’s source of funding to the ground, echoing Wick’s actions in his first outing. “Nobody” is a mirror image of “John Wick” and had the filmmakers taken out the Russian syndicate and several scenes reminiscent of Wick’s big-screen debut, the comparisons would not have been as obvious.
Those few similarities aside, “Nobody” is a balls-to-the-wall, unconstrained action flick that makes no apologies for its violence, borrowing ideas from other acclaimed movies and incorporating them to great effect here. The bad guys are truly reprehensible, therefore, their defeat and eventual demise are justified. Director Ilya Naishuller, known for the 2015 first-person perspective action thriller, “Hardcore Henry,” takes the reins and delivers, at times, a batshit crazy motion picture with unbelievable, over-the-top action set pieces and stunts that have to be seen to be believed. Bob Odenkirk assumes the initial unpretentious appearance of Hutch Mansell with great ease but as his past life slowly rears its ugly head, he becomes increasingly convincing in the role and by the film’s end, you realize that he could probably be related to John Wick in some capacity, or maybe even best friends, communicating with each other when no one else is around. I can most certainly imagine a John Wick/Hutch Mansell crossover, that would be an amazing combination, and the more I think about it, the more I want to see it.
In Theaters Friday, March 26th
