Review: Nobody

Nobody pivots on the idea of an everyday schlub secretly being the employee of the month for Murder Incorporated, which is kind of unlikely and yet not as unlikely as the idea that we're meant to think that Bob Odenkirk isn't capable of cold-blooded mass murder. By "we", I mean long term fans of his work, because if you've ever seen Mr. Show (and if you haven't run, don't walk) you know there is literally nobody (heh) working in film or television today better able to display full-throated rage with a single "what the fuck".

But Mr Show was a lifetime ago (or at least, the 90s) and nobody (lets stop this now) remembers sketch comedy, so chances are most people coming to Nobody are thinking of Odenkirk as the beat-down hustler he plays so well in Better Call Saul. The joke here isn't quite that he goes from playing one trademark Odenkirk role to another, but it's close enough for the 90 minute run time.

The other joke here is that the 55 year-old Odenkirk is able to casually murder dozens of highly trained bad guys half his age, and the multiple action scenes - all excellently staged and shot by director Illya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry) - in the back half are firmly set up by an opening that verges on a parody of boring, generic, middle-aged male impotence, piling on the numbing routine while surrounded by a family that either forgets he's there or treats him with barely hidden contempt. 

The point with all this isn't quite that Odenkirk's Hutch Mansell is an emasculated loser (it becomes clear later on that he chose to wimp out, knowing the murderous flame inside him couldn't be dampened forever), but for anyone looking to read this as the story of an old dude showing the doubters he's still got it, go right ahead.

The plot itself is extremely thin, with one moderate fake-out early on - Mansell's house gets broken into but he doesn't go murder on the crooks because it turns out as a former professional murderer he's also a very good judge of who needs to die. One of the film's better gags is that Hutch likes his work but isn't indiscriminate about it: once he finds some scumbags who deserve to die (seems the local Russian mob is both unpleasant and overburdened with a secret stash of cash), he all but taunts them into attacking him so he can deal out what they deserve. 

(this motivation makes his first full blown fight scene especially impressive, a grueling pummel session clearly driven by the need to just plain hurt somebody; this isn't what this film is about, but it's a shame it isn't explored further)

Nobody eventually pushes the John Wick formula a lot closer to parody (it's written by Wick's creator, Derek Kolstad) without ever quite tipping over the line, which is impressive considering how close to parody Wick already was. If there's any flaw in this highly enjoyable film, it's that the tension tapers off a little as the inevitable warehouse showdown arrives, simply because the story's over as soon as the mob (led by Aleksey Serebryakov's nightclub singing psycho) commit to going head-to-head with Mansell.

There's some fun cameos here (including Christopher Lloyd and RZA as Mansell's father and mystery brother), but the whole thing is totally Odenkirk's show. If he isn't quite as convincing as the physical embodiment of death as Keanu Reeves, his mix of middle-aged melancholy and murderous glee remains a winning combination throughout, providing enough spark between the slayings to make this the total suburban slaughter package.

- Anthony Morris