Nobody 2 Review

Bob Odenkirk returns to his action role as Hutch Mansell. This time, Hutch and his family experience an eventful vacation.

Hutch has returned to government service to pay back his debt after burning the Russian Mafia’s cash. However, Hutch has grown bored with killing people, and the job keeps him away from his family. Hutch decides to take his family to Plummerville, Wisconsin, so they can share the experiences he enjoyed as a child. However, Plummerville sits along an old smuggling route, and Hutch’s presence provokes local crime lords and a corrupt police force.

The first Nobody movie was an entertaining action film with a comedic edge, as it showed a seemingly ordinary man being a total badass. It was one of 87North’s best films outside of the John Wick series, thanks to the incredible action, especially the bus scene. 87North has been in a rut for the past two years. The Fall Guy and Ballerina underperformed at the box office, and Love Hurts was a critical and financial bomb. Fortunately for 87North, Nobody 2 seems a safer bet because of the name recognition, a modest budget of $25 million, and the positive critical reception.

The selling point of Nobody 2 was its well-executed action. Timo Tjahjanto took over the directing duties from Ilya Naishuller, who moved on to the Amazon action-comedy Heads of State. Tjahjanto had success in his native Indonesia, and Nobody 2 marked his American debut. The action scenes in Nobody 2 made use of the environments. They took place in locations like an arcade and a boat. Characters grabbed whatever was at hand, such as a mallet for a whack-a-mole game or life jackets for offensive and defensive purposes. The filmmakers and stunt coordinators were having a good time creating these fight scenes and shootouts.

The climax was a brilliant culmination of everything the film had built up. It was Home Alone for sadistic man-children, as many henchmen were brutally killed in various traps. Nobody 2’s climax was similar to the one in the first Nobody movie, but it made the most out of the setting.

In the first Nobody movie, Hutch was a character suppressing his violent urges and looking for an excuse to fight someone. This sequel showed a reversal in Hutch’s viewpoint as he was forced into being a government agent and kept getting caught up in violent situations. He just wanted to enjoy his holiday and be with his family, whom he longed for. The film attempted to have a theme about the relationship between fathers and sons. The fathers in the film tried to prevent their sons from following in their footsteps. Hutch’s son, Brady (Gage Monroe), was developing a violent streak, and Hutch didn’t want the teen to walk down his path.

Nobody 2 had more notable villains. The conflict started with Hutch meeting the mullet-haired town sheriff (Colin Hanks), who was a slimeball and took an immediate dislike of the tourist. Sharon Stone clearly had fun as the main villain, Lendina, an amoral and cruel crime lord who acted like someone who have ordered the death of Frank Castle’s whole family. Both actors had a presence, especially Stone.

Nobody 2 borrowed too much from its predecessor. Nobody 2 started the same way as Nobody, with Hutch handcuffed, under arrest, and having a new animal friend before flashing back to Hutch’s weekly routine. The story ideas were too similar to what happened in Nobody, where Hutch’s violent outburst escalated into a conflict with a powerful criminal enterprise. There was even a repeat of one of Hutch’s traits, where he misremembered guns.

Nobody 2 offered more of the same, for better and worse. There was a lot of originality in the action sequences, but less so in the story department.