I Really, Really Liked Nobody

Ilya Naishuller's Nobody is a familiar and formulaic movie about Hutch Mansell, a dangerous man who's had enough with today's batch of baddies. Yet I loved nearly every minute of it, not because of what it does, but rather because of how it does it. It's more fun than some serious action movies like The Terminator or virtually anything starring Liam Neeson, but it's also more serious than some fun movies like The Fall Guy, though it never shies away from a bleak and understated sense of humor seemingly tailor-made for my worst tendencies as a human being. But despite some of its differing tonal pursuits, Nobody never seems to fall into noncommitment, owning every hilariously dry visual joke it makes alongside every bone-crunching punch it throws with unmistakable deftness.

The cinematography of Nobody is a moody and noirish sight to see, somehow both understated and eye-catching at the same time. It plays with the familiar sights of contemporary America like no other movie I've seen before, capturing a strange, absurd, and even weirdly amusing darkness in the contemporary. It's a tough and rugged world for a tough and rugged man, one that amazingly manages to be a lot of fun, too. I love the firm, wordless, yet arbitrary ways this movie introduces and grows Hutch, a main character who sure knows how to throw a punch for a nobody. And for all of its narrative familiarity, Nobody still has some surprises. This movie begins where it ends - in a dark interrogation room with a cat - and then shows Hutch's start as a relatively ordinary man who does relatively ordinary things in some ways that effectively subvert the small assumptions I'd had going into this movie in unexpected and unexpectedly amusing style.

I imagine you're probably here to read about the action of Nobody, and I don't want to use disappointing words to describe fight scenes that are anything but. These fistfights are blisteringly brutal, enormously creative, and absurdly well-choreographed from beginning to end, with one particular skirmish on a bus being the stand-out in a movie chock-full of them. And yet, for all of the exhibited hostilities with Hutch, Nobody cradles a surprising tenderness that sometimes breaks through its hardened exterior in some blindsidingly sweet ways. In addition, its weird and random sense of humor more than won over me, a man who's had it up to the brawler bus's roof with unfunny and unnatural humor in blockbusters. It's a wit that is smart, subtle, and self-assured, one that's impossible to miss precisely because it never asks for any undue attention.

Thematically, Nobody is an ultra-familiar action movie. Yet, it's an evidently analogous story in the hands of some extremely and even unnecessarily skilled filmmakers. Every last comedic beat, scene blocking technique, and acting feat lands with the utmost capability. Speaking of acting, I'm amazed that Bob Obendirk hasn't been in more action movies, something I hope and imagine will change in the coming years because of his uncanny ability to threaten people over a kitty cat bracelet while still sounding menacing. Nobody is an occasionally brilliant, ever-brutal, and unmistakably well-made action movie.

You could say that I think everybody should see Nobody.

Nobody - 8/10

Psalm 27:1-3