Nobody. (12A.)
Directed by Ilya Naishuller
Starring Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Aleksey Serebryakov, Michael Ironside, RZA, Colin Salmon and Christopher Lloyd. In cinemas. 91 mins.
The sating of blood lust shouldn't be the kind of thing one is stuck up about, but you have to look down your nose at somebody who gets off on lumbering meathead revenge thrillers. If a legion of Russian henchmen have to be mowed down just so one American can feel better about his life then that American should be someone with a bit of style and some deadpan wit. A Keanu or, now, Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad. Nobody is a high end, quality production; it's a slaughterhouse as a character piece.
Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) is a sad suburban dad struggling along in a stale marriage. But not really! All that's just a piece of misdirection to disguise that this is a John Wick remake, written by the writer of John Wick, Derek Kolstad. The Wicks started relatively humbly and over three films built itself up into a Parabellum. Nobody is up to speed from the start. Its action sequences are fast and furious, but also varied, inventive and funny. For example, there's a nice little recurring gag in which everybody he tries to tell his back story to, dies before he finishes. It's also less blood thirsty than the Wicks; the action is less wincingly violent
Look at that running time – not a wasted moment. Best of all, it doesn't ask you to care, to feel that anything is really at stake in all this.
There's a new Wick in town and that's marvellous news. This democraticising of action hero roles is something to be celebrated. Still, I wonder how Odenkirk squares an understandable desire to broaden his acting and earning range with appearing in something as totally illiberal as Nobody. The message of this film is that settling down and raising families is women's work, civilisation is ultimately a sham and the only true way to be a man is to be more effectively violent than other males.
Directed by Ilya Naishuller
Starring Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Aleksey Serebryakov, Michael Ironside, RZA, Colin Salmon and Christopher Lloyd. In cinemas. 91 mins.
The sating of blood lust shouldn't be the kind of thing one is stuck up about, but you have to look down your nose at somebody who gets off on lumbering meathead revenge thrillers. If a legion of Russian henchmen have to be mowed down just so one American can feel better about his life then that American should be someone with a bit of style and some deadpan wit. A Keanu or, now, Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad. Nobody is a high end, quality production; it's a slaughterhouse as a character piece.
Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) is a sad suburban dad struggling along in a stale marriage. But not really! All that's just a piece of misdirection to disguise that this is a John Wick remake, written by the writer of John Wick, Derek Kolstad. The Wicks started relatively humbly and over three films built itself up into a Parabellum. Nobody is up to speed from the start. Its action sequences are fast and furious, but also varied, inventive and funny. For example, there's a nice little recurring gag in which everybody he tries to tell his back story to, dies before he finishes. It's also less blood thirsty than the Wicks; the action is less wincingly violent
Look at that running time – not a wasted moment. Best of all, it doesn't ask you to care, to feel that anything is really at stake in all this.
There's a new Wick in town and that's marvellous news. This democraticising of action hero roles is something to be celebrated. Still, I wonder how Odenkirk squares an understandable desire to broaden his acting and earning range with appearing in something as totally illiberal as Nobody. The message of this film is that settling down and raising families is women's work, civilisation is ultimately a sham and the only true way to be a man is to be more effectively violent than other males.
