There’s something to be said for the unorthodox action movie star. Sure, growing up in the 80s and 90s, I saw plenty of muscle-bound men–and they were always men–who kicked ass, took names, and maybe asked questions later. But these days, it’s not uncommon for even some very serious actors to do an action movie. Is there any more unconventional actor to choose for such a film than Bob Odenkirk? The man best known for the role of sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman or being half of the Mr. Show sketch comedy duo is, as I type this, 59 years old according to Wikpedia, and while he doesn’t look like he’s out of shape or anything, he certainly does look unassuming and, well, harmless.
That’s at least part of the point for Nobody, the unexpected action movie debut for Odenkirk that, based on the advertising, looked like it might have been set in something like the John Wick Universe. But would it be as fun as it looked? Well, it’s my birthday this weekend, so I am going to be catching up on stuff I would have gladly seen in theaters were it not for COVID.
Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) is living a very quiet, humdrum life. His young daughter Sammy (Paisley Cadorath) seems to adore her daddy, but teenage son Blake (Gage Monroe) is less impressed, and wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) is a little distant. He works for his father-in-law (Michael Ironside), and while the older man does seem to like and respect him, his overly macho brother-in-law (Billy McLellan) is another story. Hutch does have some secrets, something that Becca, his father (Christopher Lloyd), and his reclusive brother (RZA). But when a pair of burglars break into Hutch’s house and his opts to seemingly meekly let them go, it clearly eats away at the man. That results in Hutch on a bus, watching a group of belligerent drunks board, threatening a number of passengers, including one young woman traveling alone, and he decides to do something about it, leaving all of the men severely injured though not dead.
Small problem: one of those men is the brother of an unstable Russian mobster (Aleksei Serebryakov), the man in charge of basically that mob’s pension fund. He’ll want Hutch taken care of if for no other reason than not avenging a relative will make him look bad. The thing is, Hutch has connections of his own, long dormant, and what skills he has may be a little rusty at first, but are nothing to sneeze on their own. This may be the rare movie where it’s the bad guy who has a moment of panic when he realizes who his actual foe is…
Oh man, was this movie a blast. It starts off by effectively detailing the humdrum nature of Hutch’s everyday life and how dull and unfulfilling it is for the man, often with precise music cues (some of which might arguably be cliches, but I didn’t mind), and then showing how much he will do what he has to to protect his family while still having a code of some sort. For example, he has a good reason not to attack the two burglars that break into his house that show he’s more than he appears to be. Heck, it turns out he’s not the only one as not only does he come across as a badass, so does 83 year old Christopher LLoyd. The movie’s many fight scenes are effective and exciting, and there’s a lot of creativity in how Hutch handles himself in any conflict.
It helps that the movie, while sometimes serious, also seems to keep its sense of humor. Odenkirk, and Lloyd for that matter, are known more for their comedic work than anything else, even if Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman is a more dramatic character than anything Odenkirk ever did with David Cross. However, the bottom line is I bought that Odenkirk was a dangerous man while always looking rather unassuming. If this were the John Wick universe, it would be one without the sense of style that Wick and his associates possess. Heck, if Wick represented the criminal underworld that nobody notices, then Hutch is perhaps the law enforcement equivalent, a man who does what he can out of a sense of morality to others and not obligation to an unseen criminal hierarchy. Really, Hutch gets the ball rolling to keep his daughter from missing something small, and it’s no less ridiculous than Wick murdering half the Russian mob over the puppy. The big difference is Nobody takes itself a lot less seriously and is still just as fun as anything in the John Wick franchise.
Grade: A-
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