Nobody: Bob Odenkirk makes a surprising action hero in a trope-filled tale of a milquetoast who fights back

By Thom Ernst

Rating: B-minus

Nobody, starring Bob Odenkirk, is the age-old story of an ordinary schmuck rising out of a self-imposed slump to prove his mettle by defying some bad dudes. 

It's an oft-told tale that doesn't get old. The bad dudes in question flash their grit and moxie, but get taken down by an unimposing underdog. It's High Noon without the countdown, Falling Down without the racial undertones (except for Russians), Death Wish without the judgment. 

Bob Odenkirk goes badass against Russian gangsters in Nobody.

Nobody is the story of Hutch (Odenkirk, who at 58 makes a formidable action hero), a family man who finds salvation by locating his violent streak—dormant masculinity gets switched on to take down a nasty horde of Russian baddies so that he can live happily ever after. 

The message is clear, embracing violence leads to a better attitude, better parenting, and better sex, but only when unleashed on Russian mobsters. It's a message that seems instinctively out of whack with the real world, if only because there are more schmucks than there are mobsters to go around. 

We shouldn't expect a movie like Nobody to invest too heavily in finding a balance between good and evil. We can expect it to play on that fantasy.  

By way of introduction, director Ilya Naishuller races through Hutch's dispiriting routine in a repeated series of Guy Ritchie-esque cuts: missing the garbage collection, passing interactions with his wife, coffee, taking the Metro, arriving at his office, more coffee, returning home, crawling into bed, his wife already asleep.

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But despite the routine and the beige pants and ill-fitting jackets that scream, "I've given up," Hutch has too much going on to be a nobody. Nobodies don't have cool names like Hutch. They don't have nameplates on office doors. They aren't married to successful business people, and they don't have two healthy, seemingly well-balanced children. They certainly aren't looking to buy a business out from under their father-in-law (Michael Ironside). 

That Hutch has all of this, and it adds up to him being a nobody, suggests he is unaware of what he has. That, or something else is going on. 

Something else is, but I leave the film to unpack that information. 

Things fall apart for Hutch when a botched home invasion leaves him looking like a coward. 

But everyone has their breaking point. For Hutch, that point comes when the intruders take his eight-year-old daughter's friendship bracelet. Soon, Hutch's rise to action leads to a deadly confrontation with a Russian mob leader and his endless army of henchmen. 

Naishuller takes delight in painting his characters as underestimated - not just Hutch, who requires undervaluing for the story to work, but the vicious Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksey Serebryakov). The gangster clowns about on stage and then goes about shredding a man twice his size with a broken martini glass. 

Even Hutch’s infirm dad (a meaty role for Christopher Lloyd) has unexpected jolts of adrenaline. But Naishuller might not be twisting stereotypes as much as he thinks, rather than adhering to archetypes. It's as satisfying as a home-cooked meal, but it's nothing new or inventive. 

Nobody has most in common with A History of Violence, minus the critique on masculinity and violence as a birthright. But there are a few cues that seem to come from Joker, namely the use of iconic pop ballads played ironically beneath moments of carnage and a scene that stages a violent confrontation on public transit. 

There is also a scene of a co-worker giving Hutch a gun.  But whereas Joker was bent on prophesying questionable ethics of vigilantism and ripping off old Scorsese films, Nobody happily forgoes any ethics and freely borrows from countless films.  

But regardless of how derivative Nobody is of films both better—John Wick—and movies a whole lot better—A History of Violence—hardcore action fans will find Nobody hard to resist.  

Nobody is directed by Ilya Naishuller and stars Bob Odenkirk, Aleksey Serebryakov, Christopher Lloyd and Michael Ironside.  Nobody opens in selected theatres March 26.