Odysseus

Meet mid-life crisis John Wick.

In a past life, Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) used to be an “auditor” for various US government agencies, which is similar to how Frank Sheeran used to paint houses for the mob. Now Hutch is a suburban family man with a wife named Becca (Connie Nielsen), two beautiful kids (Gage Munroe and Paisley Cadorath), and a humdrum life driving him crazy. Though all of that starts to change the night his home gets broken into by two thieves.

You’d think that would be a major part of the plot, but instead, it’s used to demonstrate that Hutch has standards, like how he won’t take his rage out on small-time crooks who are just trying to survive. Some Russian thugs he ends up encountering on a bus one night are a whole different story. Unfortunately for Hutch, one of said thugs was the brother of mobster Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksei Serebryakov). He swears revenge not so much because he liked his brother but over the principle of the thing.

The plot of this movie is nearly identical to the 2014 version of The Equalizer. Middle-aged nobody is secretly a retired Black Ops operative who runs afoul of some Russian gangsters and goes on an a*s-kicking frenzy. Both films even have the protagonist offer the villain the chance to walk away. However, there is one significant difference. Rober McCall (Denzel Washington) will resort to violence when he deems it necessary but doesn’t particularly enjoy it, while Hutch clearly does.

This is one of those movies where there aren’t any ‘good’ guys per se, unless you count some of the supporting characters. The only reason that Hutch beat up those Russian thugs in the first place wasn’t to help the woman they were harassing but because he wanted to hit something. Though Hutch might not be your typical squeaky-clean hero, he’s still infinitely better than the person he’s going up against. Yulian is a violent psychopath who kills people at the slightest provocation.

I never saw Odenkirk as someone with the potential to be an action hero. Well, forgive me for my preconceived notions because he’s excellent in this movie. I could believe that he was this person. He also puts his usual comedic and dramatic chops to good use when the situation requires them.

I thought the fight scenes in this movie were well done, especially the parts where they remembered to make Hutch seem relatively human. For instance, that fight scene on the bus ends with Hutch winning but a little worse for wear. His fighting skills were rusty, and he went up against five other opponents unarmed. Though much like in Die Hard, reality doesn’t stop Hutch from employing the type of crazy feats that could only work in a movie.

The film’s ending sees (spoiler) Hutch getting back together with his family to give that whole normal life thing another shot. A little unbelievable so, because much like Odenkirk’s character on Better Call Saul, it’s made clear that Hutch is incapable of such a thing. But something as dark as Hutch having to leave his family wouldn’t gel with this movie’s comedic and escapist feel. The ending also implies that Becca recognizes and accepts Hutch’s dark side going forward. (/spoiler)

Ilya Naishuller directed Nobody. He’s the guy who previously made Hardcore Henry, one of my favorite action movies. In fact, my biggest problem with Nobody is that I didn’t like it nearly as much as I liked Hardcore Henry. That said, if you’re ever looking for an action double feature, I would watch those two movies back to back.