Nobody 2

Does It Better

Nobody 2
Directed by Timo Tjahjanto
USA 2025
Universal
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Extremely minor spoiler you will see coming anyway.

After the surprise hit of Nobody (reviewed here) it’s no surprise that the ensemble team from the first film... Connie Nielson, Christopher Lloyd, RZA, Colin Salmon and, of course, Bob Odenkirk as lead protagonist Hutch... are back for a second installment in Nobody 2. And, before I go into this... let me assure fans of the first movie that, yes, this one’s also lots of fun and I can’t see the producers not green lighting a third film in the franchise as soon as possible. 

That being said, this one feels a little ‘by the numbers’ in terms of the formula of the first film, for sure. After continuing to work as an ultra sleek hit man, to try and pay off the debt from all the Russian mafia money he burned up in the first movie, Hutch and his family decide to take a vacation and end up in a water park where he and his wife first spent some really good times with the kids. However, it’s not long before arriving that Hutch’s son gets them all in trouble with the local mob boss, who is also dancing on a string to the ruthless Russian mobster, played by Sharon Stone. 

Before long, it’s black comedy and ultra violence all the way in much the same way as the first film in the series did it so well. And that’s possibly one of the problems. The film does its best ot hit all the right moments which audiences loved so much from the first film... but it maybe loses just a little in the process. 

So the cold opening starts off once again with Hutch and a new pet animal held prisoner by the FBI in an interrogation. Then we flash back to how he got there for the rest of the film, starting with the Monday to Sunday montage where, to his credit, he no longer misses putting out the trash for the weekly pick up, this time around. Then, when things get going into full on action, we have the big money burning moment (albeit accidentally this time), a tourist boat fight instead of a bus fight and, also, another sequence where Hutch and his extended family rig a series of traps for the big showdown... this time in the water park. 

The big thing that’s missing is that, in this one, the audience is already in on the joke that this middle aged dude is actually a reluctant killing machine and so, we don’t really have too much of the really powerful drama of the first to pull you back in again. And, since we know he’s very dangerous, there doesn’t quite seem to be the same stakes involved in the story to really hammer that home. 

But, you know, it’s got other things going for it. So while some of the dramatic situations and the various scenes seem quite a bit more contrived, we have a nice moment where an enemy becomes an ally for the big showdown at the end of the movie. Plus, you know, we get to see RZA use a katana against a heavy in a sword fight near the end of the movie. 

And that’s me just about done with Nobody 2 and, yeah, sorry for the short review but I really don’t have many complaints (other than I’ve no idea when those end title snapshots were supposed to have taken place because, not much of a spoiler, the water park is just a hole in the ground by the end of the movie). Fans of the first one should like this one quite a bit and I’m sure I’ll be sitting down for another installment in a few years. Nobody does it better but, Nobody 2 is not a bad follow up, as sequels go. 

Nobody

My Name Is...

Nobody
2021 USA/Japan
Directed by Ilya Naishuller
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Some minor spoilers.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, Nobody is not a sequel or remake for the character in the famous Terence Hill movie. Nor is it, like a lot of reviewers have been suggesting, similar in style to the John Wick franchise... although, to be fair, it does have a few minor plot similarities and, sure, it’s loaded full of hard action sequences. This is nothing, if not an action flick with an upper case A! I’ve also read it’s a very humorous take on the action genre and, although it does have its moments, nope, I wouldn’t pigeon hole this movie as some kind of comedy thriller either. It does its own thing and it does it with a certain amount of style.

So we have a central character, Hutch, who was also known in the old days, for reasons revealed later in the film, as Nobody. He’s played by an actor who I’ve not seen before called Bob Odenkirk, who gives a very thoughtful and considered performance, I thought. Making what is, actually, the fairly fantastical, over the top, killing machine which productions like this have as their central role, a fairly believable person. Also, the writing helps out considerably here because, although he is the very definition of one of those super soldier action types found in a lot of cinema these days... he does take considerable hits and damage while he’s 'actioning away' and there are a few points when you think he’s not going to make it.

He lives with his wife played by Connie Neilsen (Wonder Woman’s mum... and I can guess why they’ve cast her as his significant other, if they get around to a sequel), his son and his daughter. His dad, played by Christopher Lloyd, lives in a care home and Hutch works a humdrum job for a boss played by the legendary Michael Ironside (who I’m ashamed to say, I didn’t even recognise... he looks so different in this).

The director takes a lot of time setting up Hutch’s bland, almost humiliating daily grind in a running day-by-day montage detailing his days Monday to Friday in short, quick cuts which get shortened with each repeat as the film goes through the days a few times more to hammer the message home (along with percussive, musical stings) that Hutch is not leading his best life. They then pile things on with a home invasion scene were Hutch doesn’t perform up to the expectations of his young son, a further blow to his ego (there’s a good reason he doesn’t defend himself as well as he might, revealed a little later in the movie) and, when he goes to track and reclaim a valuable item from one of the criminals, we see just where his heart is. On the way back, a young lady is threatened by a mob of thugs on a bus and then we get a quite spectacular scene where Hutch takes out the aggression pent up by everything we’ve seen thus far and he demolishes his opposition (while getting pretty beaten up himself). The problem is, one of the hoodlums he hospitalises is the younger brother of a very high up and extremely nasty ‘Russian mob bad guy’ and, when said villain finds out what’s been done, he comes for Hutch and his family. Which turns out to be, for the Russian and as you would expect in these kinds of movies... a bad idea. And that’s as much as I’ll say about the actual plot here.

The movie starts off strong with a heavily damaged Hutch in a police interview room, as we watch him, still in handcuffs, pull out a tin from a pocket and open it with a can opener, then pull out a little kitten from inside his jacket and put it on the table to eat from the tin. The two police detectives ask him who he is and then we (but not they), get the whole story as a flashback.

And it’s a nicely done movie with some solid performances and a crowd pleasing turn from Christopher Lloyd as the ex-FBI father who is pretty much a lethal weapon himself. There’s also an appearance from RZA of the Wu Tang Clan (who I remember seeing in a cameo in the Jim Jarmusch movie Ghost Dog - The Way Of The Samurai many years ago) and another cameo from Colin Salmon. It’s a solid cast and Aleksey Serebryakov, as the villain Yulian, also turns in a suitably unhinged performance.

The film rolls along very well and there’s a lovely bit of... hmm... what do I call this... inverted foreshadowing, where Hutch catches one of his co-workers trying to get something down from behind one of the ceiling tiles at some point and, towards the end of the film, it’s revealed just what it was she was trying to find and there comes a realisation that, yeah, we kinda knew that was coming all along. A nice little surprise which was hiding in plain sight, so to speak.

Also, the action sequences are handled very well. There’s never any confusion in the way it’s been edited so you know exactly where you are in a fight scene and you have the added bonus of never really knowing just how badly off any of the good guys in this are going to end up as nothing too ‘superhuman’ happens. Don’t get me wrong, the stunts and choreography are suitably over the top, as you would expect from a modern day action yarn but, there are no times in the scenes where you think that maybe any of the characters were performing in a way contrary to what a person would be able to sustain in a real life fire fight of this nature and... it feels very grounded a lot of the time.

Also, the ending of the film sets up the possibility of any number of sequels and I hope, if that happens, the writers won’t forget that Connie Nielsen can be a bit of an ‘action gal’ too and bring her in as her and Hutch certainly seem to have a ‘shared history’ in terms of their old professions... oh yeah, forgot to mention, there’s a very good reason why the central character can do what he does but I don’t want to spoil the character back story reveal here, other than to say that there’s a nice running joke in the movie as, every time he tries to explain his past to one of his opponents, they end up dying before hearing the end of the story.

So there you have it, Nobody is a nice action movie with, actually, a lot of heart in it. This could easily be made into a franchise and I’m hoping the very small audience numbers I saw it with don’t stop a sequel from happening in terms of box office takings. Oh... and stick around after the first minute of credits because there’s another nice little epilogue scene featuring Christopher Lloyd and RZA which isn’t essential but certainly lays more groundwork for any other sequels which may be coming. I’d definitely recommend Nobody to fans of the action genre, especially to those audience members who are getting a bit long in the tooth. A fine movie and I hope we see some more of these characters before long.

The Dead Don't Die

Fourth Wall Of The Dead

The Dead Don't Die
USA/Sweden 2019 Directed by Jim Jarmusch
UK cinema release print

Warning: Some very slight spoilerage.

I’ve always liked Jim Jarmusch as a writer/director, since first seeing his early masterpiece Down By Law in the late 1980s. I’ve not seen all of his movies... there are a few gaps... but I have seen and enjoyed most of them. Every now and again he will make a movie that seems to be a complete side step from his usual fayre. The first time I noticed this was in his truly excellent Ghost Dog - The Way Of The Samurai but he also took me by surprise by making a ‘vampire movie’ a few years back called Only Lovers Left Alive (reviewed by me here). Both of those films were much more commercially minded, it seems to me (either by design or by fluke) but each still transcended their genre trappings and held the key elements that I tend to associate with Jarmusch’s work over the years...

Those being: They were funny, poignant and highlighted the alienation of people sharing different languages and cultures even as they drew together.

So when it was announced that Jarmusch had made a zombie movie, I was interested... not just because I happen to like that sub-genre of horror movie anyway but because I knew, coming from Jarmusch, that it would be like no other zombie movie that ever came before it. Well... I got that right.

The film stars Bill Murray and Adam Driver, both regular collaborators with the director (check out Driver’s role in the directors last non-documentary movie Paterson, which I reviewed here) as two cops who are the main police presence in their small town of Centerville, along with the only other cop in town played by Chloë Sevigny. And they are all supported by a star studded cast, many of whom have worked with the director before, including Danny Glover, Tom Waits, Steve Buscemi, Tilda Swinton, RZA, Selena Gomez, Iggy Pop and Caleb Landry Jones (in a wonderful turn as a petrol and film/comic book merchandise dealer who wears a Nosferatu t-shirt). And, as you would expect from a cast like this (or pretty much any cast under this director, actually), they are all pretty amazing. Between them, Murray and Driver keep the mood sombre with their perpetually downbeat expressions and this helps maintain the minimalistic, gloomy atmosphere of a town, one of many, which has suddenly been overrun with a plague of zombies.

Now, I think this film is going to really divide people and there’s an element that even I, while laughing out loud at a lot of the wonderful humour on display here, found somewhat annoying. I’ll get to just what that is in a minute but let me first look at what this film both shares and, often, doesn’t share with the zombie genre in general.

Well, the common traits are a marked goriness when the humans are attacked although, conversely, when older zombies are out walking there is just dust instead of blood, which is possibly more accurate (I’m not sure, not being an expert on the undead myself). There’s also... and this is quite blatant here and almost being done just to check off boxes, it seems... the comparison of zombies who, like their nearest on-screen antecedents in the George A. Romero zombie flicks, are a satire of various aspects of our culture. Indeed, Jarmusch almost goes over the top to prove a point here by comparing some of the zombies to mobile phone/social media users and demonstrating this while it’s already been established earlier on in the text of the film what the ‘wifi’ so desired by the walking dead has already failed in the town.

However, it does do a lot which the modern, post-Romero zombie movie doesn’t often do. For example, it gives us a pseudo-scientific reason for the outbreak of the undead (which somehow comes in two stages in its ressurectional properties and thus renders the narrative nonsensical anyway... possibly what Jarmusch wants here) whereas most modern zombie films don’t try to find a rationale behind the undead shenanigans, they just deliberately side step it and cut to the chase. Here, Jarmusch has introduced the concept of polar fracking throwing the earth off its axis and this somehow raising the dead. Honestly, though... I think this is just another excuse to heavy hand the various metaphors used within the genre and, in some ways poke fun of it.

And that’s where I have my main problem with this film... the lack of respect for the genre. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with a director like Jarmusch seeming to say that films made in these kinds of genres are dumb and I’m more than happy for him to have a pop at them. However, the way in which he does it, with a blatant disregard for his own story mechanics where its later shown that... quite literally... anything goes (and if you’ve seen the movie I’m talking about both the final exit scene of Tilda Swinton’s character and the awareness of its non-feasibility in the script by Adam Driver’s character). And this is a big problem for me because, as I’ll get to in a minute, this kinda feels like the director is insulting the intelligence of the kinds of people who would turn out for a film like this... or at least that’s the way it felt to me, anyway.

Also, there’s a lot of referential, postmodernistic jokes in the main body of the film and while the director has done this just a little in the past, usually with a lot more of a story impact than the ‘thrown off’, almost Tarantino-esque way he does it here, I think this dumbs down the movie somewhat too. Again, don’t get me wrong because I had a little chuckle when I saw the late, great director Sam Fuller’s name on a tombstone but this film seems to be loaded with this sort of stuff and, outside of the obvious and loving references to Pittsburgh (where Romero plied his zombie trade), there seemed to be to be way too much of this kind of thing and it felt like the high calibre director was kind of slumming it, to some extent. Jarmusch is better than this, is what I kept thinking... it just seemed a little out of character for him.

Okay, so there were a few walk outs in the audience when I saw this (I’m pleased to say because, if someone like Jarmusch doesn’t get some walk outs then he’s almost failed) and I think this may be due to the quite blatant self awareness of some of the characters, Adam Driver’s in particular... and their inability or disinterest in helping themselves out in terms of where the script is taking them. So, yes, Adam Driver and Bill Murray’s characters both show, from very early in the film, that they are characters in a film and this kinda grates in the way it’s done. We’re not being asked to share in any peril or the particularly humourous modes of speech that the various characters explore (including cycles of repeat phrases which got me smiling quite a lot, it has to be said) because we can’t invest with them in any way as characters. In fact, we are being asked to interact with them on a more metatextual level, it seems but... only when it doesn’t get in the way of the on-screen action... which is a bit like the director is trying to ‘eat all the pies’ and not helpful in creating a film which holds together tonally, despite the minimalistic air of cynicism and acceptance that Jarmusch pulls from the air almost effortlessly.

Despite all these criticisms though, I personally really enjoyed The Dead Don't Die. It’s not ever going to make the top of my list in terms of favourite Jarmusch movies but it’s an entertaining piece and I think long time fans of the director shouldn’t have as much of a problem with it as a more commercially minded audience expecting to see a ‘cool zombie movie’ might have. Recommended to cineastes who are not worried about seeing what I think is personally too many directorial experiments thrown together into the same film. It’s interesting, funny and entertaining so, honestly, what more could you want from a night out at your local cinema?