Suburban dad Hutch Mansell, a former lethal assassin, is pulled back into his violent past after thwarting a home invasion, setting off a chain of events that unravels secrets about his wife Becca’s past and his own.
Chuck says:
When you get down to it, Hutch Mansell is just like so many suburban dads. He wants his family to have everything he never had, so he works his fingers to the bone. Of course, the tradeoff is that he’s seldom home, missing his son’s basketball games and daughter’s school functions, upsetting his wife in the process. And he’s not doing any better than the rest of us where facing this dilemma of the modern American middle-class male is concerned. Isn’t it his job to provide for his family? Don’t they just understand that he’s working hard for them? What to do?
Of course, the one thing that separates Hutch from us schmoes is that he’s an assassin, a killer working off a $30 million debt one grisly assignment at a time. Bob Odenkirk was the secret weapon in making the 2021 “Nobody” a surprise hit and continues to be the key element in making its sequel a worthy follow-up. The weariness and sense of resignation he brings to his Everyman contract killer makes Hutch instantly relatable. And while most of us will never be able to relate to John Wick, the fact that Hutch has a mortgage payment to make and raise two teens makes him easy to identify and sympathize with.
This aspect of the films’ premise is plumbed even further in “Nobody 2” when Hutch decides to take the crew on vacation. His wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen) has reached the end of her rope where her husband’s inability to find a proper work/life balance is concerned. So, he takes her, the kids (Gage Munroe and Paisley Cadorath) and his dear old dad (Christopher Lloyd) to Plummersville, Wisconsin. Far from being Disneyworld, it’s a place with fond memories for Hutch, as it was the site of the one and only trip he, his father and brother, Harry (RZA) ever took.
Needless to say, Plummersville has changed. While not one improvement has been made to its amusement park in forty years, the way the town is run has. Near the Canadian border, it’s become a gateway for illegal goods to enter the country. This operation is overseen by the foul-mouthed Sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks), who’s under the thumb of the ruthless crime lord, Ledina (Sharon Stone). An innocent misunderstanding leads Hutch to discover this and when his family winds up being threatened…well, you know the rest…
Running a brisk 89 minutes, director Timo Tjahjanto doesn’t give the viewer many opportunities to catch their breath. One elaborate set piece trips on the heels of the next, breaks coming only when our hero issues threats or makes this bad situation worse. Among the highlights is a fight in an arcade in which a variety of games are turned into lethal weapons, a confrontation in a warehouse that turns into an inferno and the final showdown in the decrepit amusement park in which every attraction contains a lethal booby trap.
The action is well-choreographed but far more gruesome than in the first entry. This makes the film’s darkly humorous moments a bit hard to swallow, though Stone makes up for it with an over-the-top turn that’s a hoot. Much like Buster Keaton, Odenkirk assumes a sense of resignation to the chaos that swirls about him. It’s a wise approach that draws us in, connecting to our shared sense of helplessness in the face of overwhelming odds and inexplicable events. But like any dad, Hutch puts his head down and soldiers on. His path just happens to be a bit bloodier than ours.
3 Stars
