Unless the studio spends extra on someone like Jim Cameron (either as screenwriter or director), most action franchises benefit from consistency. Timo Tjahjanto’s Nobody 2 sees that logic and then uses its face to play Whack-a-Mole, much like Bob Odenkirk does in one of the film’s fight scenes. When the delays stacked up and Ilya Naishuller, director of the first installment, moved on to make an off-brand Has Fallen movie for Prime Video (it’s weird that they’ve had two of them this year!), Universal saw that God had, in fact, opened a window. They hired Tjahjanto, one of the great action directors of this century, to take over in a fit of Hong Kong invasion-esque wisdom. Consider this the M:I2 to the statelier airs of the first one, where pure kinetic cinema replaces logic and reason — John Woo would be proud.
You know the score: Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) is a typical suburban dad, with a loving wife (Connie Nielsen) and two growing children. He’s also one of the world’s most infamous hitmen, with a body count in the hundreds, though he’s in a situation familiar to the strivers on the tree-named streets: He’s in debt. After setting $30 million in mob money alight in the last one, he’s been forced to pick up a lot of extra work to pay off the cash he lost, and it’s causing some havoc at home. His wife thinks he’s distant, his kids are acting up, and he realizes that his dreams of a comfortable family life are slipping away from him. So, when he’s reminded of a vacation spot his dad (Christopher Lloyd) took him and his adopted brother (RZA) to as kids, he decides it’s time for some fun in the moderately-priced sun.
Plummerville isn’t exactly Disneyland, and it’s definitely seen some wear-and-tear since Hutch was last in town, but it’s still one of those fun roadside attractions perfect for making memories, both the good and the bad kinds. Fully-loaded hot dogs at a local dive lead to a staredown with the sheriff (Colin Hanks). Fun times playing Super Shot in the arcade give way to an all-out brawl, where the town’s mayor, resort owner, and small-time pusherman (John Ortiz) winds up murderously enraged at Hutch for hurting his kid’s pitching arm. A Duck Boat tour (which Hutch thinks will be a DUKW boat, as seen on the streets of Boston, and is disappointed to discover that it’s a regular boat with a lot of ducks on it) also turns into a fracas, where the sheriff’s men compete to see how many teeth they can lose. Meanwhile, the big boss (Sharon Stone) starts noticing just how much chaos this “Nobody” has caused her drug-smuggling operation, and starts making moves to go Scortched Earth on the Mansells.
There are, of course, some restraints placed on Tjahjanto compared to what he might do if this were a homegrown production. The absurd levels of gore from The Night Comes for Us and The Shadow Strays have been brought down to something slightly saner, and Odenkirk’s age means that the kind of martial arts expertise he taps into when working with skilled and gifted actors/stuntmen like Iko Uwais and Joe Taslim is out of the question. Instead, he focuses on the novelty of the setting, and at the heart of every fight sequence, there’s an unwavering joy and fascination with this particular form of Americana. Hence, the Wild Bunch at Wally World finale, in which Odenkirk and his not-so Magnificent Seven take on legions of faceless goons by exploiting all of the class-action dangers of the rickety-old riverside theme park. If you’ve envisioned getting hurt on a water slide or smacked by a pendulum ride, well, here’s your nightmare weaponized by Saul Goodman. Again, there’s an amiability to the chaos, assisted by clever casting, with Stone being a particular stand-out. It’s a delight to see her on screen, hamming up the kind of goofy villain role that Mickey Rourke did a variation on in Tsui Hark’s Double Team, only she doesn’t have to put up with Dennis Rodman.
Nobody 2 will most likely not convert the haters, despite the presence of one of our living action legends behind the camera, but it is a fun, lightweight 89 minutes with a few killer action sequences and good laughs, and no pretensions of being anything more. Tjahjanto and crew understand the mission here: There’s no reason to create a Nobody cinematic universe, as hard as their corporate masters might want to squeeze a John Wick out of a Bob Odenkirk-shaped stone. But there is a series present in the DNA, and it works deliriously well when treated as if it were a sitcom-style premise. Dad got his groove back during the last one; now the whole family’s gone on vacation.
Maybe in the next one, he’ll seek out fist therapy because he’s anxious about teaching the kids the facts of life or because he’s pissed about his boy missing the cut for JV ball. It’s swell satirical substance — the suburban dad’s Falling Down power fantasy at its most ridiculous — and as long as directors like Tjahjanto are steering the ship, I don’t think we’d mind a full season-order.