Nobody

At cinemas.

Directed by Ilya Naishuller and written by John Wick writer Derek Kolstad is Nobody. Bob Odenkirk is Hutch Mansell an accountant at his father-in-laws manufacturing business and a put upon husband, ignored by his son (Gage Monroe) still loved by his daughter (Paisley Cadorath) and a strained relationship with wife Becca (Connie Nielson) all part of the dull repetition of his life. Life takes a turn for the worst when his house is burgled and he seems to let the thieves go after his son tackles one of them to the ground. Hutch however, is not what he seems and when he finds out the thieves took his daughters “Kitty” bracelet, his past skills are triggered and he heads off on a violent and bloody revenge.

Sound familiar? Of course it does. Nobody, is almost exactly the film you expect it to be, riffing off John Wick, Taken, The Equaliser, even a bit of Rambo. But that doesn’t matter, because Nobody knows exactly what it is and has huge fun with it taking us along for the ride.

Odenkirk is excellent as an unlikely hero, unassuming and as impossible a hero as the bloody avenging trail he goes on. The script gives him all the lines a protagonists in these films should get full of humour and dryly delivered.

He’s not the only unlikely hero as Christopher Lloyd, no young action hero himself, is Hutch’s Dad, David, who has his own past and provides surprising support to his avenging mission. Of course we also have our cartoon Russian villian in Aleksey Serebryakov’s Yulian, a singing violent mobster.

What really works is this is a film that has no pretension to do anything other than have fun with the genre. No terrible background tragedy, secret organisation or kidnapping of a loved one, just someone who had enough and needed to deal with it.

At 92 minutes it whizzes along, with a great soundtrack that adds to the films fun feel.

This is by no means original and it knows it, remaining true to exactly what it is, a tongue in cheek action revenge thriller, with just the right man in Odenkirk to make it work. Lots of fun, for those wanting a film that does exactly what it promises.