Nobody 2 Review | Bob Odenkirk’s “History of Violence” Goes Bigger, Not Necessarily Better

The 2021 action film Nobody, starring Bob Odenkirk, was written by Derek Kolstad, the man who wrote John Wick. Much like John Wick, Nobody also followed the classic format of A History of Violence, where you slowly get to know that our main man, who is now living a low-profile, simple life, had a violent past he wants to stay away from. The setting of Nobody was that of a frustrated family man, and it really offered a good bunch of well-imagined action blocks to the audience. With a crisp runtime of around 90 minutes, it was a no-nonsense, bloodshed-filled fun. When it comes to Nobody 2, Derek Kolstad is more interested in scaling things up and repeating the same structure, focusing more on the recall value of the stuff from the first part. With the movie somewhat walking away from the signature grumpiness of Hutch Mansell and trying to be obviously funny, Nobody 2 is definitely bigger, but not necessarily better.

The mess Mansell created in the first movie eventually makes him a slave of The Barber, who was constantly giving him assignments. Exhausted by these kill missions, Mansell requests a break and decides to go to a place named Plummerville with his family for vacation, a water theme park where his father took him during his childhood. But as we know, trouble follows Mansell, and he is not good at hiding his rage. The problems the family had to go through because of the lack of self-control of Mansell are what we see here.

The idea here is basically scaling things up and broadening the team’s strength. The very first shot of the movie is a scaled-up version of the first one. The routine life editing montage is shown here as well, but with much more blood. The special affection Mansell has for his daughter is what triggers the whole thing. And if it was the Russians last time, this time we have a different set of nexus who are also dealing with huge-scale smuggling. The structure is the same. Even the lack of physical intimacy is also getting repeated. What they are trying differently is the scale, and since the first movie already spoiled the suspense for the family, we now have them as team members of Hutch. The idea of scaling up is definitely nice, but the fact that it relies entirely on the same pattern sort of makes the movie look like an effort to capitalize on the success of the first one rather than expanding the Story with new thoughts.

Indonesian filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto is directing the second part of the franchise, and there is a significant shift in the way he approaches the Story. The visual language becomes a lot more colorful, and the Story this time is trying to derive humor through dialogue and stuff. The first one had these minimalistic give-and-take between characters, and the coolness of such verbal transactions actually made certain scenes hilarious. This time, we have the hero trying hard to be this cool parent. The way some set pieces are included in the movie, especially the one we see juxtaposed with Hutch’s meeting with The Barber, felt like an Expendables-like fan service. Co-produced by David Leitch, the film does have some excitingly choreographed action blocks with the enemy getting killed in usual and creative ways. The use of smash cuts in certain scenes helps the movie give a fresh look to the generically written moments.

The calmness of Bob Odenkirk, which had a sharp contrast from his iconic character Saul Goodman, was one of the highlights of the first movie. Seeing him as this family man doing a mundane job, finding some sort of relief when he gets to punch bullies gave the audience the high in that film. This time, the whole setting of the movie is more cheerful, and even the way they approach bad people lacks fear. Thus, Odenkirk’s version of Hutch Mansell is in that trying to be a cool guy zone, and he takes care of that pretty neatly. Connie Nielsen as Becca, this time is more of a team member, and she gets to do some swagger bits in the movie. Christopher Lloyd and RZA, as the only family of Mansell, are making cameo-like appearances in this film as well, and this time they have got some cosmetic upgrades. Sharon Stone is cast as the free-spirited, evil antagonist. When you look at the screentime and confrontation of that character, it has an evident mismatch with the kind of buildup we got from The Barber, played by Colin Salmon, and Wyatt Martin, played by John Ortiz.

If you are just looking for some crazily choreographed action blocks that offer the fun of watching stylized violence, Nobody 2 is a no-brainer choice. If you were hoping that they would build something fresh and exciting using the premise they have set up through the first part, well, then this movie might feel a bit underwhelming. With just 89 minutes of runtime and no beating around the bush, Nobody 2 is passable popcorn fun.