A middle-aged “nobody” is triggered to go back to his old ways of specialized combat and mental gymnastics when he inadvertently winds up in the crosshairs of a Russian mobster in Nobody.
Nobody is a nobody. Everybody is somebody. Bob Odenkirk is a somebody who everybody wanted to play a nobody in Nobody for everybody who’s somebody. Now that you’ve had a stroke, I invite you to read my review of Nobody, so long as you can get your eye to stop twitching.
Nobody is a unique film in ways that aren’t exactly good, but can’t really classify as bad, either. There’s some really fantastic scenes dashed in between a story that isn’t quite up to snuff, and the whole film feels like it’s consistently confused about what it wants to be. Where it could be great, it comes up short, and where it could be awful, it exceeds expectations. It’s like if the word “dichotomy” materialized as a movie and then laughed in our faces about how confused we all were by what went wrong with it. Because after watching it several times, I still can’t quite put my finger on it.
Coming from the mind of brilliance behind films like John Wick and Hardcore Henry, Nobody feels like it may have been a conglomerate of good ideas that were really hard to link together, and so they just threw them all into a blender and hoped for the best. But the most criminal aspect of all of it is the fact that it’s directed spectacularly by Ilya Naishuller, and houses some really incredible performances, too.
Specifically, Bob Odenkirk, who also worked as a producer on the project, is just amazing. Coming hot off the heels of his turn as Saul Goodman in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Odenkirk showed his range here by playing Hutch, a somewhat rundown “nobody” who is finally pushed far enough to break bad (pun intended) and goes back to his discarded old ways by getting into a brutal, bloody battle on a bus. Yes, that scene, that you’ve probably seen at least part of at some point. He puts a lot into the role, and it’s a shame that the film around him doesn’t do the character justice. Still, it’s fun to watch him get into brawls full of bloodied noses and bruised knuckles, and even more delightful to see his chemistry with the fantastic Connie Nielsen, who plays his wife, a character I wish we could’ve gotten to see more of. But Odenkirk’s performance is again a victim of dichotomy, with the weirdly overdone and flowery “villain” played by Aleksey Serebryakov, who never once convinces me that he’s anywhere near scary or mobster-ish. Between the strange karaoke scene and the 30 year age difference between him and his supposed “brother,” it’s a distraction, and a glaringly bad one. So bad, we can barely enjoy Christopher Lloyd when he turns up towards the end.
Nobody (2021)
(from left) A bus thug (Alain Moussi) and Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) in Nobody, directed by Ilya Naishuller.
Compounded with a fun soundtrack that sets the stage for really well done set pieces (I mean, where else can you get a car chase scene set to “Heartbreaker” by Pat Benatar?) and fight scenes that feel realistic to the point of absurdity, it’s disappointing that the story doesn’t live up to the greatness the film could’ve accomplished. It all starts with the script, and this one should’ve been edited through a few more drafts to accomplish a cohesive character arc and story instead of wasting so much wondrous work on a flat and detached story.
All this talent deserved to be spent on a better project. May these wrongdoings be addressed and rectified with the upcoming sequel. For the sake of all of us, and especially for Hutch himself.