Ok, I was definitely not stoked for this one. The success of the first Nobody was seeing skinny SNL writer/Mr. Show Comedian/Breaking Bad sleazy lawyer Bob Odenkirk turn into a blood, grit, and grime action hero. But you can’t pull that surprise twice. So what tricks does Nobody 2 have up its sleeve? The Night Comes for Us, and beats us to a pulp showing us it’s big plan.
Nobody 2 has put suburban middle manager Hutch (Bob Odenkirk) back into the field. He’s trying to pay off his massive debts from the first film to The Barber (Colin Salmon), who pushes him real hard, alienating Hutch from his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) and kids (Gage Munroe and Paisley Cadorath). Sensing the strain, Becca and Hutch convince the family to go to Plummerville for vacation, where Hutch went with his dad (Christopher Lloyd) when he was a kid. But Plummerville clearly rhymes with Bummerville for a reason.
With the element of surprise gone, might as well up the action ante right? And who better to make a visceral, action film than one of the geniuses behind Indonesia’s Raid revolution? Timo Tjahjanto has been beating people up overseas for over a decade now. Turns out his action stylings translate pretty decently to the US as well. Each sequence is its own thing, which keeps Nobody 2 from ever becoming sequel stale. Sometimes we get claustrophobic elevator battles; sometimes it’s on a duckboat, literal, humorously cutting fingers and teeth; sometimes its through silly soundscaping, and smartly timed explosions inside a building. Or the big finale, which combines all of those things and then some, going real hard for the comedy part of action comedy, including one of the best final destination like deaths I’ve seen this year.
And right there for it all is Bob Odenkirk. He’s got Hutch down at this point, doing grizzled family guy to a T, building in the “on/off” switch for his assassin persona. Connie Nielsen and Christopher Lloyd are back too, playing wonderful “in on the joke” foils to Odenkirk. The newcomers mostly fit in, like John Ortiz as a shady middleman and Colin Hanks as a clearly dirty cop. Sharon Stone thinks this movie’s a little more funny than actioney and really hams it up, but i guess that’s a nice respite from the dourness of some of the movie.
In the era of sequel hell, Nobody 2 at least gets points for trying. It’s a fun conceit; we’ll see if the story has more legs for a final film or even further? But don’t forget to put out the garbage cans before we even consider that idea. Though, two words for thought: Iko Uwais. That is all.