Nobody (2021)
After two Wong Kar-Wai movies I needed something completely different, which Odenkirk could provide.
The premise of what appears to be a normal family man going on a violent killing spree against criminals have been done before, and this movie doesn’t try do to much new but the execution is at the top and there a few clever twists to the formula.
It is very straight to the point and doesn’t waste time on building any characters other than the main character played by Odenkirk. The bad guys are just immediately bad guys in a few quick scenes and whenever the plot needs to advance, we get a quickly thrown in scene just we can move on. It is laughably cliché and outright silly at times, but the movie knows when to take itself less seriously and doesn’t try to make it more than it is.
What makes this movie shine for me is how the action scenes are done. The camera work is mostly steady and we have time to see what actually happens. It is probably wrong to call it realism, but there is a certain brutal depiction of this sort of crazy violence that I think gets lost in the more overly highly stylized choreography we see in John Wick movies.
At first it was hard to not see Odenkirks character as Saul, but after about 15 minutes it didn’t cross my mind again. Christopher Lloyd is hilarious as the badass grandfather. Serebryakov as the over the top Russian villain is serviceable, but not a standout here.
Rating: 3