'Nobody 2' Review: Are We There Yet?

Nobody 2 is about a family vacation, and it feels like a road trip to a family vacation—a confined trip with some occasional rest stops before you get to the fun part. No one pulled any muscles here with what to do with Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) for his next outing. Send him on vacation and have trouble follow him so that he has to punch, shoot, stab, etc. anyone who thinks they can take a swing at this seemingly mild-mannered fellow. Even the dramatic conflicts set up in the first act are hastily resolved or outright forgotten by the end because Nobody 2 isn’t trying to change the game or even reconsider its formula as much as it wants to be a showcase for some R-rated action.

In the first Nobody, Hutch was a depressed office drone hiding his past life as an assassin. His family learning the truth about him would seem like freedom, but Hutch is now in a new prison of motonony. The money he burned in the last movie belonged to some bad people, and he has $30 million of debt to pay off. He can only pay it off by taking on more violent jobs, which only further estranges him from his family. Seeking to break the cycle, Hutch arranges a family trip to PlummerLand, a crummy vacation spot in the middle of the country (that’s also somehow coded to feel like Florida) where he went as a kid. Hutch is all smiles until his violent tendencies emerge (don’t smack Hutch’s adolescent daughter upside the head), drawing the attention of corrupt local cops. These cops are part of a larger syndicate run by the psychotic Lendina (Sharon Stone), who sends reinforcements to punish Hutch for disrupting her business.

On the one hand, I can’t fault Nobody 2 for being more of the same. Director Timo Tjahjanto (Headshot) steps in for Ilya Naishuller (who recently helmed Heads of State), but the general vibe continues of Hutch trying to resist his violent urges only to unleash his fury on a bunch of nameless goons. There’s still the enjoyment of watching the 62-year-old Odenkirk do a John Wick thing (both franchises are produced by stunt house 87North, so there’s a similar feel to the kinetic action), but the film feels more like it’s teasing its climactic action scene rather than making everything that comes before fully count.

Watching Hutch and his family stroll through the amusement park, the film doesn’t hide what we can expect later. Oh, there’s a hall of mirrors? That could be useful. Oh, Hutch’s wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) is an expert marksman at the shooting gallery? I wonder if she’ll pick up a real gun later. It’s not bad to have these kinds of set-ups, but it’s also the film acknowleding that there’s one big set piece, and you have to wait patiently for the final 20 minutes to get there.

That’s not inherently wrong, but then the puzzle becomes how Tjahjanto can make all the preceding action scenes have a distinct personality while not outshining the grand finale. For the most part he’s successful. You’ve got Hutch beating up some security guards at an arcade set to The Offspring’s “Come Out and Play,” and another brawl set on a boat with some oblivious patrons in the front unaware of the violence playing out behind them. All of this is fine, and makes Nobody 2 a “does what it says on the tin,” kind of movie. But for a sequel, we’re left wondering if Tjahanto is ever going to take a bigger swing.

You can see this in how the film’s big villain, Lendina, doesn’t even arrive until halfway through. Good for Sharon Stone to get paid for a few days work and strutting around in fun outfits, but her introduction also speaks to how unhurried the film is in setting larger stakes. The purpose of the plot is to keep setting up action scenes and then wrap things up so quickly that the conflicts that started the movie—Hutch’s estrangement from his family, the massive debt he owes—are still unresolved, but no one seems bothered by it.

None of this makes Nobody 2 particularly bad, but it does highlight that should these movies continue, they’re unlikely to expand like John Wick did. I certainly didn’t mind the smaller stakes; at times Nobody 2 almost plays like a Western with Hutch coming to town to clean things up. But the sequel takes a little too much pride in pointing out its destinations rather than emphasizing the unexpected. As bloody and violent as Nobody 2 gets, we all know where this thing is headed, and while it may not be relaxing for Hutch Mansell, it’s oddly comforting for the rest of us.

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