“Nobody” (2021)
“They say God doesn’t close a door before opening another”.
“They say God doesn’t close a door before opening another”.
Nobody had me from the very first bars of Nina Simone singing “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”, lost me a little in the middle third Act with the introduction of the film’s bad guy and, whilst the remaining third of the film becomes the typical action film romp and over the top FUBAR we’ve all seen so many times before, they manage to insert the Gerry and the Pacemakers original version of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” inside a frenetic guns blazing shootout, and well, the film isn’t completely brainless fare, the opening Act is incredible and they managed to squeeze in two of my all time favourite songs too, so that must be a recommendation! Of sorts?
Continuing with the accompanying music soundtrack, and accompanying is both the highest of praise as well as a beautiful truism as the song choices really coalesce with the life and times of the film’s protagonist, “Hutch Mansell” (Bob Odenkirk). Choices include “I’ve Gotta Be Me” by Steve Lawrence, “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong and, very telling as well as brilliantly used indeed, “The Impossible Dream” by Andy Williams. Whilst I disengaged with the middle Act (mainly because it wasn’t as stupendous as the film’s opening Act) and re-engaged with it’s over the top FUBAR denouement, there’s a fun film here that builds brilliantly throughout it’s first half an hour.
“Hutch Mansell” (Bob Odenkirk) Hutch is many things, the vast majority of which are tied with a very strong bow and stored away deep within the recesses of places he no longer wishes to go. He leads a repressed and restrained life and the life of another man inside another’s skin. Living with, but seemingly estranged from, his wife “Becca Mansell” (Connie Nielsen) and son “Brady Mansell” (Gage Munroe), he remains adored by his youngest daughter “Sammy Mansell” (Paisley Cadorath) yet as the day by day calendar scrolls ever quickening and intermittently on screen, Monday to Friday is a daily grind of nothingness that is slowly and surely sapping the life from an ever increasingly irritable Hutch. The days fly by in a cleverly choreographed blur of swiping in and out of work, making coffee, exercising and doing pull ups in front of a huge blown up picture of his estate agent wife and forever being reminded that he “missed the garbage”, a miss we see repeatedly amid more growing anger. The passage of time and day(s) quicken, more coffee is made, work is swiped into and out of, garbage is missed, bizarre exercises taken in front of a large billboard of his wife, and a wife who barely looks at him and is forever asleep at bedtime.
There’s something deeply amiss within the life of Hutch Mansell, and did I mention his house was robbed by gun toting, masked robbers in the middle of the night as well?
Completing the cast list is a cameo star turn from the much cherished Christopher Lloyd as Hutch’s father “David Mansell”, Michael Ironside as his father-in-law “Eddie Williams” and especially Aleksey Serebryakov as the deadly dark and twisted bad guy “Yulian Kuznetsov”. Directed by Ilya Naishuller in only his second full length feature film stint in the directors chair, it could be argued that producer David Leitch (Bullet Train, Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde) had a significant input into the film’s often astonishing fight sequences that owe a huge debt of gratitude to contemporary James Bond and behemoth film franchises such as Jason Bourne and John Wick.
Thus the film doesn’t take itself wholly serious, is the better for it and there’s a highly watchable film blended with a fantastic soundtrack to accompany it.
Thanks for reading. Just for larks as always, and always a human reaction rather than spoilers galore. My three most recently published film articles are linked below or there’s well over 100 blog articles (with 300+ individual film reviews) within my archives from which to choose:
“Nomadland” (2020)
Heart breaking study of life after death.medium.com
“Limbo” (2020).
“It’s a good job God made dreaming for free”.medium.com