Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman finds clever ways out of scrapes. He’s not wired to fight back physically or with gunfire. At first blush, “Nobody’s” Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) seems to be the same way – except without Saul’s ingenuity. But this film written by “John Wick’s” Derek Kolstad ends up being a delicious wish-fulfillment fantasy.
From Everyman to badass
After Hutch handles a home invasion in cautious fashion, he hears about it coming and going at his job as an accountant for a parts factory. He also receives a cold shoulder from his teenage son Blake (Gage Munroe).
Odenkirk is perfect in this role. His face expresses suppressed irritation at being smirked at by the world’s tough guys – his boss (Michael Ironside) and brother-in-law (Billy MacLellan) among them. By doing “the right thing” in that tense encounter, he’s not “a Man.”
“Nobody” (2021)
Director: Ilya Naishuller
Writer: Derek Kolstad
Stars: Bob Odenkirk, Aleksey Serebryakov, Connie Nielsen
The actor’s age (58) serves him well, even though at first glance he’s too old to be an action hero. The again, he’s only two years older than Keanu Reeves, so maybe 58 is the new 38. Still, we sense Hutch’s tiredness.
Not so much physically, as he does work out every day. It’s the routine – cleverly shown in an opening montage – that wears him down, simply by being monotonous. We could be seeing an introduction to one of those “repeated day” movies, except Hutch only feels stuck in the same day.
Street-fu
In addition to the wish fulfillment of cutting loose and getting revenge — in “Wick,” over a murdered puppy, here over Hutch’s daughter’s stolen kitty-cat bracelet — the stunt choreography is of a piece with that franchise.
If “Wick” is “gun-fu,” director Ilya Naishuller’s “Nobody” is “street fighter fu.” The early action-sequence highlight finds a bunch of drunken Russian thugs harassing a female bus rider. While watching Hutch take on this quintet, a smile was pasted on my face.
It’s unrealistic in a macro sense, but blow by blow, it feels like a brawl. And Hutch takes his share of punishment, like Wick and the MCU’s Punisher and Daredevil. To quote Rocky, it’s not how hard Hutch can hit, it’s how hard he can get hit and keep fighting.
Change of direction (Spoilers)
(SPOILERS THROUGH END OF POST.)
We’ll never know if “Nobody” could keep going in this fashion, because it soon reveals that Hutch actually has a background as a professional badass. He was trying to escape it with a family of four, a two-car garage, a white picket fence, etc.
Kolstad builds up a mythology with similar trappings to “Wick’s,” providing further fodder that “Nobody” could exist in that universe.
The film slows down a bit to introduce sociopathic Russian villain Yulian (Aleksey Serebryakov, in a role that Rutger Hauer might’ve chewed on were he alive). He’s that type of bad guy who treats the world as his playground, the kind who thinks nothing of blowing snot rockets in hospitals. We immediately hate him.
Yulian’s job in the Russian mob is to move loads of cash around to keep it away from the authorities. This is a “Wick”-ian notion: a broad action-film cliché turned into an internal mythology.
Hutch also pulls out gold ingots, and I wondered if those were like the medallions used at the Continental. But they are just plain gold, which Hutch uses to buy his place of employment. He then manufactures customized weapons in a “gearing up” montage that would have Rambo nodding with approval.
Having it both ways (Spoilers)
So actually, “Nobody” successfully has it both ways. Yes, it does thoroughly show why Hutch is a badass fighter, rather than pretending that an Everyman could become this way overnight, driven only by rage.
There are some built-in benefits to Kolstad’s approach. For instance, it dawns on a viewer that Hutch’s war-veteran dad (Christopher Lloyd) is part of this violent world, too. We smack our lips in anticipation, knowing that Yulian’s men are in for a surprise at the old folks’ home. (And that sequence definitely delivers.)
But come to think of it, movies by their very nature are wish fulfillment, so that aspect doesn’t totally go away. And I hope “Nobody” doesn’t go away after one film. Whether it crosses over with “John Wick” or not, it clearly could be a fun street-fu franchise.