Direction: Ilya Naishuller
Country: USA
Nobody is a kinetic, action-packed romp smeared with dark comedic touches that create that mood that feels just right. It’s the first directorial effort by Russian Ilya Naishuller, who worked from a familiar yet smart script by Derek Kolstad, the creative brain behind the John Wick franchise.
Perpetually violent, the film follows Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk of Breaking Bad series and Alexander Payne’s Nebraska), a seemingly quiet family man with a mysterious past who gradually became bored, cold and irritated throughout the years. After an armed couple breaks into his house, he decides to go after them, but not before realizing that his daughter’s kitty-cat bracelet is missing. Somehow, this brings a new excitement to his monotonous life, and he even reconnects with his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen).
In his fury, he ends up messing with the Russian mob while helping a young woman in distress, becoming the target of Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksey Serebryakov), a beast of a sociopath and Obshak guardian.
Besides the suitable multi-genre retro soundtrack and the expeditious editing by the team Evan Schiff and William Yeh, the film ramps up with Odenkirk’s breathtaking performance.
Sometimes, Naishuller toys with cliché and embraces the ridicule, taking a good laugh whenever they occur. And those include most of the scenes involving Hutch’s father, David (remember Christopher Lloyd? Back to the Future’s Dr. Emmet Brown), a former FBI agent with a disturbing craving for guns (where did we see this before?).
Nobody is nothing major, but there’s enough funny and electrifying moments laced through the uneven plot sequences to make us engaged.
