Nobody (2021) – Nobody’s Perfect

Released: 1st April
Seen: 29th June

Some films are really easy to talk about, they hand you a long list of positives and negatives that you can put into an order that gives a fair and balanced view of who might like it. Some films are so bad that it’s like a game of mad libs trying to come up with the most visceral description of disgust… rarely is there a film so good that I want to just make the entire review “IS GOOD GO SEE”, but Nobody is that rare film where I want to just not bother trying to be smart and just go with my base instinct of yelling “IS GOOD GO SEE”… but the internet seems to prefer it for the algorithm if a blog post is about 1000 words so here we go.

Nobody tells the story of your average guy, Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk), who lives your average boring life doing an average 9 to 5 job with his average home life with his wife Becca (Connie Nielson) and kids Blake (Gage Munroe) and Abby (Paisley Cadorath). Everything is getting to a point where Hutch might just lose his mind from boredom when, on the bus home one day, a group of men start harassing a woman and Hutch’s pent up rage finally gets out. 

Well, funny thing, turns out one of the men who Hutch beats black and blue is related to a mafia don who would like to have a spot of revenge… and they have no idea who they’re about to mess with.

From the second Nobody starts, it’s giving everything it has to entertain you. From the hyper manic editing of the opening montage of mundane suburban life, the film somehow takes that boredom and makes it compelling as hell… and then Hutch goes through a home invasion and the film never stops topping itself. 

It’s like a magic trick where every scene just adds more and more elaborate awesomeness to what came before and just when you think they can’t go any further, they hand Christopher Lloyd a large number of shotguns and say “Have fun” because everyone knows the image of Christopher Lloyd mowing down bad guys with a shotgun in each hand and a smile on his face is one of the greatest gifts cinema has ever given us.

It’s almost offensive how much fun Nobody is, and it shouldn’t much of a shock since it came from the guy who wrote John Wick (Aka THE Action blockbuster series of the 2010s) and the director of Hardcore Henry (which is just a visual joy) so combining those two together creates some of the most creative and fun action scenes that’ve been put on film in a while. 

The final confrontation is just pure violent brilliance, like an R rated Home Alone on a sugar high and it’s amazing. Nobody is one of those movies that doesn’t just ask you to sit up and take notice, it grabs you by the face and slams you against the screen yelling “LOOK AT THE COOL SHIT WE DID”… and then probably does a line of coke, it’s that proud of itself.

There isn’t a single solitary second of Nobody that feels slow, even when it’s trying to show the boring day to day life of the main character it finds a way to do that with energy and passion pouring out of every frame. There isn’t a moment to breathe, but it somehow never feels overwhelming. It’s throwing cool things on screen relentlessly but you never tire of what’s being shown, if anything I’d like a lot more of this because it’s just so fun.

I know I’m not the first to gush about how good Bob Odenkirk is in this (Indeed, my failure to see Nobody when it would’ve been in a cinema near me 3 months ago means I might be one of the last ones) but holy crap this is the kind of performance that will have a million producers begging him to turn full action star and do a dozen more of these. It’s an incredible performance, far away from his more comedic work he manages to bring the raw humanity of the character to life and also sell the hell out of the fact that this character could kill you with anything he finds nearby.

Nobody is the kind of film that requires a PowerPoint presentation to describe properly how good it is… that PowerPoint presentation would just include showing the entire film while I stood beside the screen, pointed at it and screamed “LOOK AT THE AWESOMENESS!” because that’s what this film is. It’s pure awesome, not a single moment wasted and not a single shot underwhelms. It shot for the stars and somehow went even further, a joyful violent thrill ride that will have your jaw on the floor where it belongs.