Nobody 2 Movie Review: A bloody, fun-filled ride that is slowly showing signs of wear down

Nobody 2 Movie Review: There is a point in the film where we see a wide frame where Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk), begrudgingly walking away from a potential fight involving a bunch of non-English speakers, a Sheriff (Colin Hanks), heaps of money, gasoline, two barrels of unknown chemicals, and a young boy who is kidnapped by the bad men. The frame is static. Hutch has left the place in his car, and you know bad people are going to do bad things. The frame is static. And why is it so? It is because team Nobody 2 knows that every member sitting in the audience, across the globe, knows that Hutch would return. There is no way the car wasn’t going to reverse right back into the frame. There is no way that Hutch wasn’t going to enter the conflict zone and smash his bloody way out of everything and save the teenager because… He is Hutch. And Nobody 2 is not even trying to surprise you. Even a little bit.

Director: Timo Tjahjanto

Cast: Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Colin Hanks, Sharon Stone, Christopher Lloyd

Unlike the John Wick series, where the titular character is forever on the run from one group or another over the series of four films, Hutch is someone who isn’t exactly on the run, even if the machinations are mostly similar. In fact, in this film, Hutch is on a break. A vacation from his seemingly never-ending rampage of gory violence. And where does Hutch, his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen), son Brady (Gage Munroe), daughter Sammy (Paisley Cadorath), and father (Christopher Lloyd) go to? A little town on the border called Plummerville, which is a core memory from Hutch’s childhood, and is a carnival town of sorts. There is an arcade. There are watersports. There are well-lit giant wheels. There are rickety old rides. And of course, a wild wolf is biding its time in a creaky old cage. And nope, it is not a metaphor for Hutch because he wastes no time in getting into the wrong side of a criminal ring, headed by Lendina (Sharon Stone, having too much fun), based out of Plummerville, and they are hell-bent on murdering him and his family. All of us know what happens when you go after them.

So, what are we left with? Hutch is trying to reconcile with his family, who aren’t really happy that he isn’t spending enough time with them. Hutch is still doing assignments because he owes money to the Russian mob, the same money he torched to the ground in the first film. But again, the story doesn’t really matter in Nobody 2. What’s the point of it anyway? We are in for a brisk 90-minute ride into the world of mindless violence, slasher core with wry humour, and of course, the feeling of having watched a bloodied mess of a film that doesn’t promise anything but a fun-filled, gory ride at the movies. 

And that’s exactly what unfolds in Nobody 2 as each stunt gets more bloody, more gory, slightly less inventive, but scores points on the immense inventiveness of the setting. Are the hand-to-hand combats getting tedious? Try imagining a katana going against a machete in the dark woods illuminated by the night sky. Are limbs hanging on by the barest of bones getting boring? Try imagining a playpen that blows people to smithereens. You get the drift, right? There are also a couple of poignant moments that highlight the bonding between a father and his child, as well as the cyclical nature of dads wanting their sons to be significantly better versions of themselves. But there is just too much blood, too frequent blowing up, and too many bullets to pause and take in the nuances of these conversations. We are just distracted by the action setpieces and the euphoria of openly enjoying gratuitous violence.

As the credits roll, we aren’t sure if we watched a film with a plot and character development or if we just sat back and witnessed the live streaming of a violent video game, with countless others egging on the murderous rampage, feeling a sense of collective catharsis. Nevertheless, Nobody 2 feels more like a reprise than a sequel. It needs a lot more freshness and a screenplay structure that doesn’t rely on milking the novelty of seeing Bob Odenkirk play a poker-faced assassin, which is now starting to wear thin. Yes, he gets hurt a lot, and the stakes are getting higher, and yet, it doesn’t reflect in the film, simply because we know Hutch is going to return when the frame gets static. And… Nobody likes a showoff.