Nobody

 

The ultra-violent avenger thrillers' defining franchise is the John Wick series that stars Keanu Reeves. It appeals to a certain movie-goer sensibility -- those who care less about a sensible narrative but insist on endless combat because they know all of the blood and breaking bones is high-end Hollywood fakery and delight in the excessiveness. Bruce Willis's Die Hard series, which began in 1988, may have been the forerunner of the subgenre, and Ilya Naishuller's Nobody is the latest entry. Star Bob Odenkirk plays former spy agency asset named Hutch Mansell, who gets pulled out of retirement by a botched home invasion. Odenkirk's persona as lawyer Saul Goodman of the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul is inescapable, so "bits-of-Saul" are sprinkled in amongst the outlandish body count, wise-crackery and guerilla weaponry and the excruciating close-order battles. Odenkirk is fit and in fine fighting form as he chases down a ridiculous Russian mobster (Aleksey Serebryakov whose line readings are nearly unintelligible) with the aid of his adopted brother (a mostly off-screen performance by rapper RZA) and his loopy retired G-man father, played by Christopher Lloyd. Rounding out the leads in this entertaining raw-meat meal is Connie Nielsen as Hutch's oddly withholding wife. Yes, the narrative is a little thin on connective tissue but that just leaves more room for evisceration and dismemberment. Yay!