Nobody ★★★★ ½ | Movie Review

Synopsis


A bystander who intervenes to help a woman being harassed by a group of men becomes the target of a vengeful drug lord.

Directed by Ilya Naishuller.
Written by Derek Kolstad.
Starring Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd and Aleksey Serebryakov.
Released in the UK, June 2021


Review


Having been out of the trailer game for a while this one managed to sneak up on me. It looked intriguing enough.

Hutch has a humdrum life. Work, home, sleep, repeat. When that monotony is broken by criminals, his past comes back to mix things up a bit.

This film is short and sweet, I was shocked to come out of the cinema to something that passed for sunlight. At just over an hour and a half it packs an action-filled punch. It does love a montage, which helps its length. I thought I'd get bored of them, but no, each time summed up the scenes well and really gave the non-action great pace to keep up with the actiony bits.

I loved the experience of seeing this in the cinema, the reactions were really entertaining. The air was filled with sharp intakes of breath and winces accompanied by laughter. It was a joyful bit of viewing. (Apart from the three women in front of me, for the second film in a row, who spoke "spoilers" out loud during the screening. They were obvious, and I could see them coming, but that wasn't really the point.)

Bob Odenkirk is one of those actors I recognise, but generally wouldn't be able to identify from anything specific. (Apart from the dad in Little Women.) That for me was worked really well as it's exactly what matched the character, Hutch needs to be forgettably memorable, and the pairing worked really well. His reactions to the violence added that underlying menace that really won me over. And I'm not going to lie, my reaction to my house is the same as his.

Christopher Lloyd was a pleasant surprise in the cast, and I wasn't disappointed with his scenes. Pure ridiculous joy. Could he have done with more to do? Maybe. Was I bothered that he didn't get it? Not really, it just made for a wonderful addition.

Seeing it jump around locations a nice touch, and it used confined spaces particularly well. The bus scene had me ducking and weaving along with the fighting. There were moments though where I wanted to see a little more of what was happening in some of those spaces though. There were some very elaborate setups but we seemed to be left with unanswered questions. The same goes for a couple of the other bits of the film, and while the intrigue sufficed for some, it didn't carry through to all of them.

Nobody proved to be an entertaining action film, John Wick for the "regular" person. It didn't get me so hyped that I was buzzing and couldn't sleep, it got me to the verbalising the action with every gut punch point... and I'm here for it. Can't fault it... apart from it not having more Christopher Lloyd action scenes.

What you should do


It's definitely worth a watch, it was short and entertaining, and another little twist of the genre that really worked.

Movie thing you wish you could take home


A secret stash wouldn't be a bad idea.

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