Nobody 2 Review

The great martial arts director Timo Tjahjanto’s first US film is a pleasant disappointment. Nobody 2, the sequel to 2021’s Bob Odenkirk-plays-a-sadsack-who-gets-his-groove-back-by-resurrecting-his-abilities-as-a-master-assassin picture Nobody is an amiable, brisk goof with a game cast and some creative action. At its worst, it’s airless and underbaked, but at its best, namely when it turns into a riff on Richard Stark’s Slayground, it’s a hoot.

Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) may be happier and healthier brawling in the underworld game than he was denying himself to the point of ego-death, but busy is busy. He and his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) know that their family (Christopher Lloyd as Hutch’s father David, Gage Munroe as son Brady, and Paisley Cadorath as daughter Sammy) needs time together, time to recharge, refresh their bonds, and relax. A convenient bumper sticker points Hutch towards the resort town of Plummerville, where he, his father, and his brother Harry (RZA) once had a rare moment of normality and fun. Thus, the Mansells pack up and go on vacation.

Naturally, things go sideways. The Mansells cross paths with a rancid sheriff (Colin Hanks) who thinks he’s bigger and badder than he actually is, a surprisingly reasonable local crime lord (John Ortiz) who loves his son (Lucius Hoyos), and a decidedly unreasonable national crime lord (Sharon Stone) who loves her tiny dog almost as much as she loves murder.

While Nobody 2 is first and foremost an action comedy, a significant hunk of it feels like a hangout film. Hutch completed his character development in the first Nobody. He already knows that he must accept all of himself (both the goofy dad and the ruthless assassin) and that balancing his life will be tricky. Over Nobody 2’s 87 minutes, Hutch reconfirms both of those facts while trying desperately to enjoy a vacation with the people he loves. It’s always amiable and often charming, but the film’s hangout side and its action side never quite gel. That, combined with Hutch’s relative narrative stasis and a plethora of subplots that must compete for space in a short runtime, leaves Nobody 2 lacking the momentum of both the first film and Tjahjanto’s earlier pictures.

Moreover, while the picture is certainly fun, it’s a general, vague fun that never quite builds its own identity. When Odenkirk cuts loose for the first time in the first film, it works not only because the fight is skillfully choreographed and filmed and Odenkirk threw himself into mastering screenfighting, but also because it takes his star image and transforms it. Likewise, part of what makes Tjahjanto’s The Night Comes for Us sing is the way in which Tjahjanto and company interlink the visual language of horror with the visual language of action, using the absurd carnage that Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais endure and inflict to highlight their characters and the ways they transform throughout the film. Nobody 2’s action doesn’t have that sort of specificity, and in places it works against scenes that could have established it. Tjahjanto’s action is clear, creative, and grody, but it’s held back by the picture’s generally light tone and some blunt editing. There are multiple moments where bodies should be pushed past their physical limits and mercilessly ruined, only for the moment to be interrupted by a cut or a reaction shot. Sometimes this works - as in an excellent duel between RZA and the great Daniel Bernhardt, where the cut is both thematically fitting (since they’re dueling with blades) and serves as a killer punchline to the action, but often it interrupts the flow and stomps on the brakes. More than once, Nobody 2 builds a memorable action beat that does not completely materialize, and this is not helped by a clash between the picture’s general goofiness and the heaviest moments of its action. Both are well done, but they lack connective tissue, and, at times, the dissonance becomes distracting.

Nobody 2 is never less than agreeable and entertaining, but it’s a letdown. It would be a good time on a plane, a train, or in the backseat of an automobile, but it doesn’t match its predecessor or Tjahjanto’s other works. Ah well, it is what it is.

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