User reviews
- Jess Fenton Read Jess' full article... https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-nobody-john-wicks-cousin-is-just-as-badass-but-with-more-laughs
All that is just to say as a preamble that this movie held my attention and interest, which was all it needed to do. I gave it a try because I like Bob Odenkirk, though I must say I don’t see him as an action hero. Neither the story nor the characters were particular gripping for me, but as I said, it was entertaining enough for me to stick with it, despite the excess of deaths. I am not complying about the violence,I should clarify, just the body count. It is almost like the director came out before every scene, clapped his hands, and instead of saying “Here is what I want from each of you,” he asked “Here is how many dead bodies I want.” It is almost cartoonish. Violence can be powerful and sizzle in the viewer’s gut, but when there is way too much of it, it loses its power and even its relevance. So although I have no idea if the average action thriller crowd liked this movie, I will say that if you are not a fan of violence, action films or Bob Odenkirk, I would give it a miss.
On one hand, the formulaic narrative isn’t unique in the slightest, holding a cliche, weak villain, and a lack of compelling characters besides the main one. On the other hand, it features insanely gory, bloody, well-choreographed fighting sequences, where Odenkirk absolutely shines - the actor performs a shockingly impressive amount of stunts. Expectations-wise, it offers the high entertainment levels audiences crave, so I can’t help but recommend it. Rating: B
People have compared it to John Wick but I do disagree with that. Sure the basic premise of the story is quite similar but that’s it. To me these are quite different movies albeit in the same genre or even sub-genre. John Wick is much more classy both in John Wick’s style and the entire setting of the movie with it’s entire secret society. John Wick is also much more over the top in the action parts. Nobody is more gritty and he is slightly closer to a normal person than John Wick. The movie starts of a bit slow actually. Well, at least in my opinion. Nobody is mostly walking around moping and looking sad. He also more or less gets beaten up right away which made me get a bit concerned as to whether this was going to be a movie I liked or not. I got really concerned when he managed to get himself tasered of all things. What the f…? Luckily he picks up on the bad-assery and it gets better as the movie progresses. Towards the end it gets really good actually, first when he frees the bad guy from the burden of all that ill gotten cash and then the showdown at the little work shop where Nobody barricaded himself together with… nah, that would be a spoiler, you have to watch the movie. The bad guy is actually quite a good bad guy. Hollywood has been really lousy at creating good bad guys lately but this one, a real far out psychopath as well as a Russian mobster, fits the role perfectly. Just to be a bit picky, a 4.9 litre 72 Challenger? Now I may of course be wrong but to my knowledge there is no such thing as a 72 Challenger with a 4.9 litre engine (also a 4.9 litre engine is really not very impressive). Did some lazy writer just pick a number? Anyway, this was definitely a good movie. Quite enjoyable.
<em>'Nobody'</em> 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 <em>'McMafia'</em>. 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'.
