Review: 'Nobody 2' puts Bob Odenkirk through more cartoonish violence, and inches him closer to a universe-building franchise
“Nobody 2” is an enjoyably maniacal action movie with a ridiculous body count, following in the path of 2021’s “Nobody” and taking its first steps toward creating a cinematic universe.
Bob Odenkirk returns as Hutch Mansell, who from the outside seems to have two major personality traits: He’s boring in a suburban dad sort of way, and he’s indestructible — both characteristics that come in handy in his chosen work, as a lethal contractor who takes jobs that usually involve lots of killing. He’s working off a debt to a Russian mobster, whose money he torched in the first movie, and his handler, called only The Barber (Colin Salmon), tells Hutch he still has $30 million to go.
Hutch, though, needs a break — not necessarily because of the violence, but because his work has taken him away from his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen), and their two kids, Brady (Gage Munroe) and Sammy (Paisley Cadorath). He keeps missing family dinners, and watching his kids growing up. So Hutch decides to plan a family vacation.
The place Hutch chooses is Plummerville, Wisconsin, the place his dad (Christopher Lloyd) took a young Hutch and his brother Harry when they were kids. It’s got a water slide, a midway, an arcade and “duck boats” — which Hutch has to explain to his children. What could go wrong?
Let the list begin. First, there are the teen bullies who harass Brady and Abby at the arcade. Followed by the security guards who kick the Mansells out of the arcade, and slap Abby on the back of the head as they leave — which prompts Hutch to go back in and beat the crap out of the bullies and the security goons. That’s how Hutch and Blake wind up in the county lockup, run by Sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks), who’s a nasty, vindictive sort. Turns out, though, that Abel isn’t the big dog in Plummerville. That’s Wyatt Martin (John Ortiz), whose father founded the tourist trap the Mansells are visiting — and Wyatt isn’t happy, because he blames Brady for hurting Wyatt’s son, Max (Lucius Hoyos), a high school baseball star, in his throwing arm.
It only takes Hutch a few minutes, and a lot of deputies and goons to beat up, to learn that Wyatt is answering to an even bigger boss — a ruthless gangster, Lendina, who launders her crime empire’s money in Plummerville.
Lendina is played by Sharon Stone, who hasn’t had a movie role this prominent in a while — and she makes up for the absence with a world-class display of scenery-chewing, full-gonzo, over-the-top menace.
Director Timo Tjahjanto stages a series of outlandish action sequences, turning Martin’s amusement park into a gauntlet for Lendina’s hired hands to get shot, stabbed and blown up in unusual ways. If you can imagine Wile E. Coyote with an arsenal the size of a medium-sized country, you get the general idea.
Meanwhile, screenwriters Derek Kolstad (who wrote the original “John Wick”) and Aaron Rabin expand the action to give moments of righteous violence to Nielsen, Lloyd and RZA, who returns as Hutch’s warrior brother, Harry. The script also hints at a larger universe of workaholic contract killers, one that might be explored in future installments.
The possibility of those future installments rests largely on how much rest Odenkirk gets between film shoots. Odenkirk shows a remarkable physicality, and a continued ability to take a fake punch, that give the fight sequences an authenticity that make the ridiculousness seem just plausible enough to make an audience worry about the guy’s health.
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‘Nobody 2’
★★★
Opens Friday, August 15, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong bloody violence, and language throughout. Running time: 89 minutes.