Some fathers wish to see their sons grow up to be men just like them. Others hope their sons don't end up being anything like them; in fact, they want them to be better. At a pivotal point in Nobody 2, Bob Odenkirk's Hutch tells his teenage son Brady (Gage Munroe) not to behave in a certain way — basically, don’t be like his dad. This deed involves an unwelcome episode, the kind that ruins a family vacation. But hey, without such writing choices, we wouldn't get a movie.
Timo Tjahjanto, the Indonesian filmmaker known for delivering uncomprimisingly blood-soaked, bang-for-your-buck action extravaganzas tailored for R-rated action movie junkies ("The Night Comes for Us", "The Shadow Strays"), brings to Nobody 2 a degree of fun and humour not seen in his darker pictures. The result is a rip-roaring action experience that's thin on plot but heavy on bloodshed and fireworks, not necessarily in that order.
It employs a template already established in the first film directed by Ilya Naishuller. The story once again comes from Derek Colstad, the creator of the now popular John Wick franchise. Unlike the urban settings of the first, this time Colstad plants his characters in a funhouse playground — essentially the R-rated equivalent of Home Alone or any other home invasion thriller where the intruders realise they messed with the wrong person and are soon going to be royally f*****. And I'm only giving an idea of the third act. Before it gets there, Tjahjanto creates enough mayhem to make Michael Bay and Quentin Tarantino giggle in joy.
Funnily enough, Odenkirk, who in another film would've been playing a television news anchor or a drug dealer's attorney, demonstrated through the combined efforts of Naishuller and Tjahjanto that he can be as mean as Walter White and as quick as (or nearly) Jackie Chan and as handy with a weapon as John Wick. There's, of course, a reasonable trigger for the events in Nobody 2.
Sharon Stone plays the principal antagonist, Lendina, a woman who happens to be a dog lover but reveals herself as a deadly underworld figure more ruthless than any of the male bad guys we encounter in the film. While one can see shades of her iconic femme fatales in Basic Instinct or Casino, it’s also a character that feels undercooked by the time we reach the film's closing moments. The nagging feeling that, maybe, someone like Uma Thurman or Charlize Theron could've done better in the part, but then we have already seen enough action movies with them.
When you move aside the tributes to numerous films where a lone man's arrival causes havoc amongst a strange town’s corrupt inhabitants (from Bad Day at Black Rock to Sanjuro to the Sergio Leone films), and possible nods to Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and Orson Welles' The Lady from Shanghai, and the army of thugs, assassins, and a corrupt Sheriff unleashed in the course of the events, it fundamentally boils down to the bond between protective parents and sons (and a daughter).
Film: Nobody 2
Director: Timo Tjahjanto
Cast: Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielson, John Ortiz, RZA, Sharon Stone
Rating: 4/5
