Nobody (2021)

User Review

• 

  d_riptide

  7 / 10

  Despite the fact that John Wick is a story that’s been told countless times in the past, one of the main reasons why it’s maintained it’s popularity is because....how do I put this: it has an extreme amount of endurance and a ridiculously high tolerance for pain so whatever it tries out, it doesn’t feel out of place or uncharacteristic in its universe. I’m mentioning this because going into “Nobody”, I felt these John Wick comparisons shoot up into overdrive...and not in a way that got me excited because everything that I saw from the trailers just gave off the impression of a concept going completely barren.
  
  Outside of an underworld mythology, antagonists with nicknames and an unkillable hero, it features a former feared merc or agent coming out of retirement to help someone in need only to attract some more dangerous people. The fact that Derek Kolstad wrote this along with the director of Hardcore Henry didn’t stop the comparisons from rolling in but I was able to finally accept this as its own thing and enjoy it.....way more than I thought I would.
  
  This felt more like a parody rather than an expansion pack of the same formula as the evened out-layers of comedy and self-awareness next to the violence balances satire with seriousness in a way that arouses genuine laughter at some of the situations without ever losing its grip on the actual stakes of the story. Not to mention the action sequences are extremely well-choreographed with ultra smooth stunt work and versatility, cinematography is extremely agile and ruthlessly focused, they did a good job trying to keep the pacing streamlined for a 90 minute movie (but to no avail), editing never caused a problem, production design was decent, I actually didn’t mind how ridiculously over the top Aleksei Serebryakov was as the antagonist and round up, round up for entry #7 or #8 because Bob Odenkirk marks himself as yet ANOTHER candidate for Best Actor of the year. Other performances aren’t a problem either but given the type of movie Odenkirk was in, this was surprising in almost every which way.
  
  
  Of course, there were a few setbacks. Most of the dialogue feels glibly shallow, the rest of the cast doesn’t get nearly as much development as Hutch, the short runtime along with the uneven pacing makes the film less defining in scope and again, I feel as if this actually could’ve been an original piece of work had they took the John Wick story in another direction after the first forty minutes, honestly. It’s pure style over substance and it isn’t even being that upfront about it. As is, it’s a predictable hitman action thriller with just enough of its own quirks to possibly stand out on its own.

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