MOVIE REVIEW – Nobody features one of the stars of the “Breaking Bad” series, Bob Odenkirk. Here he plays a “Mr. Nobody” who takes a beating until one day, at the end of his rope, he drops the cavalry. And it hurts!

 

In Nobody, in his forties, Hutch (Bob Odenkirk) is bored with his daily routine. His job is not very rewarding and he is regularly treated like a bully, the atmosphere at home is flat and his son does not pay him much attention, and the flame is extinguished with his wife, who still has some affection for him. Until the day when, following a minor incident, Hutch literally breaks down and decides to fight back. And he’s far from the innocent lamb everyone thinks he is…

 

The humour is effective

 

The guy who goes berserk and becomes an unstoppable pit bull is a classic thriller or action movie. Last year, “Unhinged“, starring Russell Crowe, offered an extreme interpretation, in the tradition of the great “Falling Down” (1993), with Michael Douglas. This “Nobody” is rather in the footsteps of the excellent “Cold Blood” (2019), with Liam Neeson: if the violence is indeed there, it is so huge that it becomes laughable, the action scenes being systematically adorned with a humour that is not always fine, but effective.

An unknown director at the helm

 

The role of this “Mr Nobody” who turns out to be an ace with all weapons, fire or not, suits Bob Odenkirk perfectly, whose Droopy face already worked miracles in the series “Breaking Bad” or “Fargo”. What a treat to see him get into it with a bunch of thugs on the bus, or to take on Russian mobsters!

And it’s even better when he’s accompanied in his furious trek by Christopher Lloyd (“Back to the Future”) who, at more than 80 years old, seems to enjoy playing characters who are at least a little bit over the top. At the helm of this film, which will appeal to those who enjoyed the “John Wick” trilogy, we find a virtual unknown, the Russian director Ilya Naishuller, whose only claim to fame was, apart from a feature film that went unnoticed (“Hardcore Henry”, in 2016), the direction of The Weeknd’s “False Alarm” video. A young talent that we will now follow…

-Zardoz-