Nobody (2021)
3/4
Before I sat down with my popcorn to watch Nobody, I had one simple question: can Bob Odenkirk be the next big action hero? From what I saw in this movie, the answer is a definitive yes.
It brings me great pleasure to say Odenkirk is superb in his role as Hutch Mansell, a family man who is seemingly just an ordinary guy. He has a wife and two kids, and works at his father-in-law’s metal-fabrication company. But, as the movie progresses, we learn that he’s far from ordinary and is actually quite the effective killing machine who has no problem brutally murdering a house full of Russian bad guys.
Odenkirk spent more than a year training for this role, and I’m happy to say that that work really helps him convince the audience that he’s capable of all of the things he does in the movie. Odenkirk is a strong action hero and makes this this movie a unique action picture.
I also loved Christopher Lloyd’s role in the film. I never thought I would get so much pleasure in seeing the same man who played Doc Brown actually shoot people, but it was ridiculously funny and easily my favourite part of the movie. He plays Hutch’s father David, a retired FBI agent who lives in a home for the elderly and watches a lot of late-night TV. He is great in this role and seeing him in a movie is always a very treasured experience to me.
The movie isn’t without its faults, though. The main thing I will call it out for is its treatment of women. The only main character in the movie who is a woman is Becca Mansell, Hutch’s wife, and she is in there just to be a wife. She never does anything interesting or of vital importance to the plot. She’s just there to be a mom who takes her children up to her mother’s house when things heat up, and that’s all we see of them. There are so many interesting paths that the filmmakers could have gone down with her character that would have benefited the movie, but instead they chose to focus solely on the men of the film, which, quite frankly, really left a sour taste in my mouth. I found it disrespectful and really took me right out of the picture.
However, Nobody is still overall a very entertaining film, with an excellent performance by its star Odenkirk.