‘Nobody 2’ receives 3.5 out of 10 stars.
K3fUW3hpY6YwKgjyql23P3Opening in theaters August 15 is ‘Nobody 2,’ directed by Timo Tjahjanto and starring Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, RZA, Colin Hanks, John Ortiz, Colin Salmon, Christopher Lloyd, and Sharon Stone.
Related Article: Bob Odenkirk to Star for Director Ben Wheatley in Action Pic ‘Normal’
Initial Thoughts
With the original ‘Nobody’ in 2021, writer Derek Kolstad, director Ilya Naishuller, and star Bob Odenkirk found a way to freshen up the action subgenre in which a seemingly ordinary guy turns out to be a deadly assassin who only reluctantly deploys his brutal skills. The key was Odenkirk, who managed to make Hutch Mansell’s transformation from dyspeptic husband and dad into lethal killer funny, believable, and even a little sad.
A mild hit, ‘Nobody’ didn’t seem like it would be instant sequel fodder, but here we are. Except that four years later, with increasingly tired retreads of the same tropes like ‘Love Hurts,’ ‘A Working Man,’ and ‘Novocaine’ coming out in the last year alone, ‘Nobody 2’ simply offers up more of the same. Only it doesn’t even have the rudimentary character development of the first film; this one, directed by Indonesian action filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto, can’t find the same relatively successful blend of comedy and action and quickly turns silly, with the thin plot used mainly to stretch the film from one numbing action sequence to another. Odenkirk is watchable as always, but ‘Nobody 2’ is a sequel that fails to justify its existence.
Story and Direction
The movie begins the same way as the first one: with an injured Hutch in an interrogation room, facing two FBI agents who want to know who he is (only this time he’s not alone). Cue the title card and a rewind to a few days earlier. Hutch is back to full-time assassination work to pay off the $30 million debt he owes the government for covering the Russian mob money he torched in the first movie. His nonstop schedule has distanced him from his kids and his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen, with a bit more to do this time), who is also feeling them drift apart.
Hutch decides he needs a break and rounds up the family for a vacation to Plummerville, home of Wild Bill’s Majestic Midway and Waterpark, an amusement park which Hutch’s dad David (Christopher Lloyd) took him and his brother Harry (RZA) when they were kids. “Making memories” is the goal, and Hutch even brings his dad along to relive what he considered one of the happiest times of his life. But as his handler (Colin Salmon) warns: “The job is in your nature, and nature always wins.”
Sure enough, they’re barely at the park for a day when Hutch’s son runs afoul of some bullies at the arcade, leading to a violent altercation between Hutch and some security guards. That puts him on the radar of the park’s owner, Wyatt Martin (John Ortiz) and the corrupt Sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks), both of whom work for the psychopathic crime queen Lendina (Sharon Stone). Plummerville has become a front for Lendina’s nefarious drug and gun-running operation, and Hutch is not welcome.
That’s about as far as the plot gets before it turns, as mentioned earlier, into just an excuse for escalating mayhem. Despite Odenkirk’s normal guy façade, Hutch is all but a superhero; he gets out of every scrape with a few dings (okay, and a missing fingertip) while leaving everyone else bashed to a pulp on the floor. No one in his family or his eventual team (which includes his dad, of course, as well as Harry – RZA showing up for a day’s work – and an ally one can see coming from a mile away) ever seems like they’re truly in danger, which makes the stakes for the characters almost non-existent.
And that’s what ultimately lets the air out of this largely joyless affair. Tjahjanto, making his Hollywood debut here after films like ‘May the Devil Take You,’ can speed up or slow down the action all he wants, but he doesn’t really do anything creative or exciting with it. It’s just Odenkirk (or his fight double) pummeling generic bad guys over and over again in increasingly silly and frenetic ways. The characterizations are skin-deep, and even the big bad, Sharon Stone’s Lendina, feels like she’s barely in the movie (which runs about 82 minutes before credits).
The film also utilizes the now customary gag of playing some upbeat pop standard underneath each scene of bone-crunching violence or destruction — as ironic counterpoint, we suppose — but it’s been done to death and isn’t amusing anymore. Then of course, there’s the montage where Hutch and friends prepare death traps in the amusement park in what seems like a full afternoon’s work, while Lendina and her army drive there at approximately two miles an hour. Meanwhile, the seeds of interesting ideas – mainly centering around Hutch’s influence on his kids and his relationship with Becca – are given lip service and then tossed aside without even bothering at a resolution.
Cast and Performances
We’ll give credit where credit is due: Bob Odenkirk works hard to bring Hutch and the picture to life, and he commits to both the bit and the action in a way that at least seems honest. He’s the main reason one sticks with ‘Nobody 2,’ even if it sometimes feels like he’s alternating between two expressions – downtrodden and mad – the whole movie. As noted earlier, Connie Nielsen is kept a little busier this time around, but the simmering tension between Becca and Hutch never pays off.
As for the rest of the cast, the work is mostly phoned in. Ortiz and Hanks handle their paper-thin bad guys as best they can, while Christopher Lloyd and RZA look happy to be getting paid just to show up and stand around (the latter especially is barely in the film). As for Sharon Stone, she vamps and screeches and gyrates and generally chews up all the scenery she can find, but the character is so underwritten than even Stone going full psycho can’t make her particularly interesting.
Final Thoughts
If Timo Tjahjanto set out to bring any of the flavor of his work in Indonesia to a Hollywood action/comedy film, it doesn’t make an impression here. Aside from Odenkirk and Nielsen and a few sparsely funny moments sprinkled throughout, ‘Nobody 2’ is the definition of a sequel that no one in particular asked for.
It doesn’t advance the character of Hutch the way that the first film did, and it doesn’t fully embrace either its campiness or the potential grittiness of the action. It feels as insubstantial as a cartoon or video game, is as unrealistic as either of those, and doesn’t have anything that’s particularly interesting to say. Like its rudimentary story, the joke in ‘Nobody 2’ wears out fast.
What is the plot of ‘Nobody 2’?
Four years after he took on the Russian mob, husband, father and workaholic assassin Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) is working off his debt to them with an unending string of hits on international thugs. But when Hutch and his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) decide to take their kids on a short vacation, a minor encounter with town bullies yanks the family into the crosshairs of an unhinged, blood-thirsty crime boss (Sharon Stone).
Who is in the cast of ‘Nobody 2’?
- Bob Odenkirk as Hutch Mansell
- Connie Nielsen as Becca Mansell
- John Ortiz as Wyatt Martin
- RZA as Harry Mansell
- Colin Hanks as Sheriff Abel
- Christopher Lloyd as David Mansell
- Sharon Stone as Lendina
- Colin Salmon as The Barber
- Gage Munroe as Brady Mansell
- Paisley Cadorath as Sammy Mansell
Other Movies Similar to ‘Nobody 2′:
- ‘Taken‘ (2009)
- ‘Taken 2‘ (2012)
- ‘John Wick‘ (2014)
- ‘Taken 3‘ (2015)
- ‘Atomic Blonde‘ (2017)
- ‘John Wick: Chapter 2‘ (2017)
- ‘John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum‘ (2019)
- ‘Nobody‘ (2021)
- ‘John Wick: Chapter 4‘ (2023)
- ‘Love Hurts’ (2025)
- ‘Novocaine’ (2025)
- ‘A Working Man’ (2025)
