Io sono nessuno

An absolute blast!

'Nobody' is a supremely entertaining action flick. Most of it actually feels fairly usual for a film of this sort, yet the way everything is presented is great! The pacing is perfection, the musical choices are fully on point and then you also have strong cast performances.

Bob Odenkirk is of course (rightly) super acclaimed for that role as a certain lawyer elsewhere, so it's nice to see him doing other things. He is superb in this from beginning to end. Aleksei Serebryakov also gives a good performance, as also seen in television's 'McMafia'. Christopher Lloyd and RZA are fun, too.

The action is top notch, especially the fight stuff, and the humour - whilst not in your face - is noteworthy as well. It all comes together to make a fantastic 90 minutes that truly fly by. Gimme 'Nobody 2'.

After attaining deserved stardom due to his electrifying performances on 'Breaking Bad' and 'Better Call Saul', veteran writer-performer Bob Odenkirk made the move to a feature film starring vehicle. Here he's a ton of fun playing an average working drone named Hutch Mansell, living an ordinary average life. But after his house is robbed, this brings out his long-suppressed action-oriented tendencies. One night, he decides to dispense some punishment to miscreants raising hell on a bus. He ends up killing one of them, and now he's in over his head because this victim was the kid brother of a top Russian mobster (Aleksey Serebryakov). But with a little help from his own dad David (Christopher Lloyd) and the mysterious Harry (RZA), he takes the fight to the multitude of bad guys.

There's no deep thinking needed for a lark like this; overall, this is ideal if you just want a non-stop, fast-paced barrage of violence. As you can surmise, this is not a case of a milquetoast discovering his inner badass after some passage of time; this is a story of a guy who's always been tough but prefers not to show it off. And Odenkirk, who came up with the concept after dealing with a home invasion in his real life, is nicely cast as this unlikely action movie hero. He's not super-human, fortunately; he does take some lumps during that memorable bus sequence. But he's a determined man who refuses to let these scores of creeps intimidate him. The whole supporting cast is great, although Connie Nielsen (as Mrs. Mansell) and Michael Ironside (as his father-in-law) don't get much to do in the finished film. It's just a total hoot seeing Lloyd in one of the unlikeliest roles of *his* career. And Serebryakov is likewise fun as the bad guy, playing him with some nuance and not just menace.

Amusing soundtrack choices, solid fights and chase scenes, and a steady supply of expendable thugs who (mostly) can't hit the broad side of a barn help to make this acceptable over-the-top, patently ridiculous action fare.

As a bonus, this was filmed in my hometown, so I had additional fun spotting familiar locations.

Seven out of 10.

There's a lot of gunshots, fights and blood. There so much violence that it becomes over the top funny. The last scene literally becomes Home Alone, watch it and you'll know what I mean.

If you are into John Wick type of films, you will be quite interested. But it's not exactly that kind of film this one. Mostly because there is no horse-riding and cartoon-ish absurdity in action sequences. There's "slightly" more realism and the fact that the hero of this film seems vulnerable makes it more interesting; Bob Odenkirk does look like an everyday day guy in this film. But the action scenes and the fights are excellent and he does an excellent job nailing them! The film starts off well, somewhat slow and picks up faster pace within 20 min. Right at that point, there is one scene which is rather stupidly set-up to give way for the rest of the story...the one with the bus...but later things do improve. The bus sequence is excellent action, don't get me wrong. It's just the way it was setup prior to the action. But... don't look for any script/scene consistency...just enjoy. Runtime is excellent for this genre; just 1h 30min, it never ever gets boring. It's just a cool movie overall, it won't get an Oscar or stay in your movie library but it will provide great entertainment! 7.5/10 for the fun.

Why have this movie eluded me until now late in 2021? Sure, I had stumbled upon the movie earlier this year, but the movie's cover/poster was one that made me believe that this was just another Bob Odenkirk comedy, so I put off sitting down to watch it.

And now that I finally took the time to watch it, I must admit that I had certainly been missing out on a great movie. Wow. Are you kidding me, this movie was just spectacular and entertaining from start to end.

The storyline in "Nobody", as written by Derek Kolstad, was really something else. With the movie starting out tediously set with repetitive routines, the storyline slowly starts to unfold and director Ilya Naishuller slowly piles on more and more of storytelling and action scenes. Boy there was an abundance of good action to be seen in "Nobody".

I have to admit that I am now looking at Bob Odenkirk in a whole new light here, after having seen his performance in "Nobody". This was an amazing change of pace for this guy, and he really managed to carry the movie well with his performance, showing that he can do action movies as good as he can do comedy.

This movie had a great cast ensemble, with the likes of Bob Odenkirk putting on a rather surprising performance. But also have the likes of Michael Ironside, Connie Nielsen and Christopher Lloyd on the cast list.

"Nobody" was a movie that just sidewinded me, and this is without a doubt a movie that you must sit down and watch, should you get the chance. Especially if you enjoy a good old fashioned action movie with a good story, great pacing and an abundance of action.

My rating of "Nobody" lands on a well-deserved seven out of ten stars.