Nobody

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: A-

              Nobody is the latest entry in what seems to now be a full-blown subgenre: stories of ordinary-looking guys that are secretly badasses who are pulled out of their normal lives to kick large amounts of ass. If you’ve seen the John Wick or The Equalizer movies, then Nobody is going to feel awfully familiar. In fact, Nobody is derivative as hell. On one hand, I almost marveled at how brazenly derivative it is. On the other hand, I didn’t give a shit because I had a blast with this movie. Nobody is a super violent and fun action flick and the most fun I’ve had in a theater in a long time.

               Imagine John Wick if John started the movie as Kevin Spacey’s character from American Beauty and you get the gist of this. Bob Odenkirk (best known as Saul from Breaking Bad) plays Hutch, a normal guy that works a boring job, has a family that doesn’t particularly respect him and basically has a life that’s stuck in a rut. One day, his home is robbed, he does nothing to prevent it and everybody mocks him as a wimp for not fighting off the robbers. Turns out, robbing his house was a really bad idea because he used to be a psychopathic hitman and this sets him down a path reverting back to his old ways. The body count escalates quickly as we find out that you really, really shouldn’t fuck with this dude.

               Let’s get this out of the way: the similarities between Nobody and John Wick are frigging ridiculous. The films were written by the same guy (Derek Kolstad), who is really getting a lot of mileage out of this concept. I don’t mean that in a general way, as in they both use the secret-badass motif. I mean that they are close to being the same fucking script. Both involve a former hitman trying to start a new life who then inadvertently kills the relative of a higher-up in the Russian mafia and then must fight off the entire Russian mafia. I mean, why the fuck do they always have to be Russian? They could easily be Irish or Italian and it would at least be something different. It was also the Russians in The Equalizer. For fuck’s sake, you could even use the same actors, just tweak their accents or something to make the similarities less glaring. On the plus side, Hutch ends up with a cat (totally different from John Wick’s dog) and gets a Challenger (totally different from John Wick’s Mustang).

               While I had to subtract a few points for the shameless similarities, I don’t really care because this movie kicks more ass than a raging bull in a proctologist’s office. Once Hutch snaps, this movie goes into Rambo 4 & 5 levels of cartoonish violence. People are pummeled and stabbed and shot in every way possible. People are blown up and body parts fly in every direction. The term “roller coaster ride” is a cliché’ when reviewing movies, but I’m going to use it here: Nobody is a roller coaster ride. The opening scenes of Hutch’s boring life are the ascent of the hill and, once he snaps, we get dropped down that first hill and the action and violence does not stop until the final scene. The level of violence and absolute refusal to take place in reality reminded me of great vigilante movies of the 80s like The Exterminator and Death Wish 3 (the Film Nurse pointed out that I make a lot of references to Death Wish 3, as if one could seriously discuss film without acknowledging the awesomeness of Death Wish 3; it’s the elephant in the room of film criticism).

               Nobody is also damn funny, perhaps the funniest movie of this type that I can think of. John Wick has humorous moments, sure, but I don’t recall laughing out loud during any of those movies. I laughed out loud several times during this, as did the sizeable audience that I was with. Nobody is not a serious mediation on justice and vigilantism; see the original Death Wish if you want to see that done well. No, this is over-the-top craziness without any serious social commentary and I goddamn appreciate it.

               Odenkirk absolutely nails this role. He’s perfectly unassuming to start and then handles the action scenes with shocking gravitas. You don’t exactly win awards for movies like this (because “serious” film critics can suck it), but his shift into badass territory is startlingly convincing. He becomes intimidating with the flick of a switch while still retaining humor and humanity, giving the audience a perfect guide and avatar for the insanity of the film’s later scenes. I also have to give special mention to Christopher Lloyd because 1. I love Christopher Lloyd and rarely see him these days and 2. We get to see old-ass Doc Brown blasting motherfuckers with a shotgun and I had a huge grin on my face the whole time. Good to see you, Christopher.

               I enjoyed the hell out of this movie, as did everyone else in the theater. With all of the crap that I’ve seen in theaters since the pandemic started, it was nice to hear a large audience laughing and cheering throughout a movie again. Nobody won’t win any awards for originality, but it takes its formula and delivers a damn good time with it.

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