I Watched Nobody (2021)
2021’s Nobody is a candy bar action flick of the highest order. I will admit, this is more a Tony’s Chocolonely rather than a Hershey’s bar, but it is still a sweet treat rather than a film with any substance. I can’t remember when I originally watched it, but I recently rewatched it whilst visiting family, and I don’t think my opinion of the film was helped by it being a second viewing.
Bob Odenkirk stars as Hutch, a mild-mannered family man. Like many protagonists in the “justified revenge” genre of action film, Hutch is portrayed as a downbeat everyman at first. This ensures he poses the lowest possible barrier to audience self-insertion, facilitating the genre-standard wish fulfilment reveal of “Ah-ha! This unremarkable average Joe is actually an ex-government agent/retired special forces/an old mafia enforcer (delete as appropriate)!” Whilst the character lies firmly in a well-worn trope, Odenkirk’s performance is as good as one would expect from his television work. Making the most of a rote script isn’t always easy, but Odenkirk plays Hutch’s emotional moments and gritty “badass” scenes with equal aplomb.
The film steps very close to critiquing the revenge flick at a number of points, but never quite progresses beyond a subtle wink or humorous moment. One repeated bit is Hutch’s self-exploratory monologues being interrupted by the death of the person he was speaking to. If I were to be generous, these could be the film’s attempts to poke fun at the emotionally wounded action hero trope, but they aren’t repeated enough or framed quite right to really land. The loss of Hutch’s daughter’s cat bracelet acts as the inciting event for his return to violence, but the reveal that it had just slipped under a settee is played with a deadpan beat. That moment dips a toe in self-criticism by highlighting the triviality of Hutch’s justification for his rampage. I enjoyed it, but it felt a little out of place amongst the rest of the film.
Despite these nods to the absurdity of the genre, the film is too steeped in the fantasy of legitimised violence to really land as a subversive film. The famous bus fight scene happens after Odenkirk’s character tracks down the couple who burgled his house and discovers they don’t have his daughter’s bracelet and have their own family troubles to deal with. In that context, although justified by the film’s framing of it, the bus fight reads as Hutch’s self-flagellatory stress release rather than a heroic intervention against thugs. Whilst the fight scene is technically competent and takes place in an interesting setting, it made me realise how tired I am of men on screen who are celebrated for a lack of temperance.
Nobody is a fun, well-made film, but don’t expect much more than that. There is plenty of more interesting cinema out there to spend an evening with.