NOBODY DOES IT BETTER

MOVIE
Nobody
Bob Odenkirk, Christopher Lloyd
Director Ilya Naishuller
Review Ray Chan

The older moviegoers may recall the 1973 comedy spaghetti western My Name Is Nobody, starring Terence Hill as an unkempt simpleton without a name, but whose façade hid an unerring ability with a gun.
    The premise of an anonymous law enforcer appears to have now been modernised in Derek Kolstad’s Nobody, in which comedy writer Bob Odenkirk trades farce for force, playing a loser who ends up punching above his weight.
    The movie begins by focusing on the humdrum routine of the lead character Hutch, a former feared secret agent who is painted as a failure. His disinterested wife sleeps with several pillows between them, and his son is disillusioned after he refuses to put up a fight against a pair of home intruders.
    When Hutch does finally come out of retirement, it's not because of some profound epiphany nor violent consequence. It’s just because the house robbers took his daughter's kitty cat bracelet, and he doesn't want to let her down.
    And therein lies part of the charm of the film, which has some whimsical undertones to give it warmth. When a bunch of drunken gangsters get on the same bus as a frustrated Hutch and start harassing a girl, he beats them up in a wonderfully choreographed sequence which is all fast, furious and funny, causing the audience to guffaw and recoil in disgust at the same time. 

    Unfortunately for Hutch, one of the injured ruffians is the brother of a Russian mobster named Yulian (Alexey Serebryakov), a crime boss who just likes partying and having fun but isn’t above killing a dude at the smallest provocation. As the film continues, those character quirks fade away until he’s just a routine antagonist dispatching waves of killers to enact revenge on Hutch.
    Watching Odenkirk using all his skills to defend himself – while calling himself just “a nobody” – and gleefully killing Russian gangsters with various forms of firearms is a guilty joy. An unexpectedly amusing recurring theme is Hutch repeatedly giving his backstory to people only to look up and realise they died halfway through the narration.
    Christopher Lloyd is delightful in a supporting role, smuggling in his darker capabilities as Hutch’s father, while a late appearance by RZA as Hutch’s brother is engaging, even though it feels like more could have been done with his character.
    Nobody contains many inspired set pieces and enough bits of vim, verve and viciousness to make it an entertaining experience. Still, the fact that the characters are pretty typical and unsurprising limits the film’s staying power, while the casting of an actor more known for his comedic roles makes every scene feel like it will end with a knowing wink at the camera.
    The film is really kind of ridiculous: but it knows it, which makes it all the more enjoyable.
    *Reviewer's tip: stay for the mid-credits scene.

#nobody #universal