FAMILY GUY (NOBODY)

 

When it comes to ageing action heroes, Charles Bronson, Sean Connery and Clint Eastwood blazed the trail.

Action stars like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan and Bruce Willis have also continued to thump baddies in their sixties and seventies.

However in the last 13 years, Liam Neeson has become the go to ageing guy for dispatching evil doers on the big screen. 

It is a market Neeson desperately needs to walk away from.

But who would have wagered money on actor and comedian Bob Odenkirk stepping into those shoes?

Yet here is the star of 'Breaking Bad' and 'Better Call Saul' punching, gouging, stabbing and shooting his way through Russian director Ilya Naishuller's 'Nobody'.

And somehow, against all odds, it works.

Odenkirk plays Hutch Mansell, an ordinary man living a humdrum suburban life.

He gets up, often forgets to put the bins out on a Tuesday, exercises, makes breakfast for his family, goes to work, guzzles coffee, comes home to a surly teenage son and to a young daughter who idolises him.

This cycle is repeated Monday to Friday, until one night burglars break into Hutch's house.

Creeping downstairs, he grabs a wood from his golf clubs and is confronted by a nervous couple in balaclavas who hold him at gunpoint.

The couple demand money and are disappointed to learn he does not carry much in the house.

Cursing their luck, the woman grabs some loose dollar notes from a bowl in the kitchen while her husband is suddenly attacked by Hutch's son, Gage Munroe's Blake Mansell.

While Blake wrestles the man to the ground and holds him in a headlock, there is an opportunity for Hutch to strike the woman with the golf club as she turns his back on him and points the gun at his son.

Yet he doesn't.

Much to Blake's disappointment, Hutch orders his son to let the burglar go.

The boy is punched in the face before the nervous couple abscond with very little money and Hutch's watch.

Humiliated in the eyes of his son, Hutch is rattled by what has happened.

He is also belittled by a cop at the scene who tells him if it was his family he would have beaten the burglars up.

Hutch has to endure his next door neighbour implying he is a wimp, while he boasts about a car he has inherited from a father he clearly has little affection for.

The ribbing continues at work, where his macho brother in law, Neil Davison's Albert Williams points a revolver at him with the safety catch off and insists on him taking it to protect his family.

Wearily, Hutch takes the revolver and conceals it in a box in the office fridge freezer.

Hutch is also wrestling with problems at home.

His relationship with his real estate agent wife, Connie Nielsen's Becca has gone off the boil as they go through the motions of family life.

His son barely speaks to him.

But it is when his young daughter, Paisley Cadorath's Abby realises that her Hello Kitty bracelet has disappeared from the bowl where the money was stolen that he finally snaps.

Hutch has been concealing a past life and a particular set of skills which we realise he was afraid to unleash on the burglars.

Determined to retrieve the bracelet, he goes off in search of tattooists who could help him identify the couple who broke into his home.

He confronts Humberly Gonzalez's Lupita and Edsson Morales' Luis Martin.

But that confrontation will set in train a series of events that will see Hutch stand up to five yobbos harassing a girl on a late night bus and then facing the wrath of Aleksey Serebrayakov's Russian mobster Yulian Kuznetskov and his army of well armed goons.

As Naishuller's film unfolds, the screenplay by Derek Kolstad gets more and more preposterous.

But boy is it fun.

A lot of that is down to Odenkirk, whose natural flair for comedy pays off in spades.

Lacking the traditional physique of an action hero, you nevertheless buy that Hutch is a resourceful former assassin who can take whatever is thrown at him.

But a lot of that is down to the glint in Odenkirk's eye.

Hutch has elements of Charles Bronson's 'Death Wish' vigilante Paul Kersey, Michael Douglas' 'Falling Down' character D-Fens, Clint Eastwood's grouchy Walt Kowalski from 'Gran Torino' and Liam Neeson's 'Taken' hero Bryan Mills.

But Odenkirk takes those influences and shapes them into a character that is very much of his own making - giving a weary, middle aged suburban dad some real depth.

Over the course of 90 minutes, Naishuller and Kolstad do a good job at concocting a smart, pacy thriller that is not solely reliant on brawn.

The film impressively skewers macho posturing, taking aim at suburban white men.

Many of those who belittle Hutch for not attacking the burglars would wee themselves when faced with the scenarios he encounters.

As for the rest of the cast, Serebrayakov makes for a delightfully ghoulish villain, with an Ethiopian Russian sidekick Araya Mengesha's Pavel.

Nielsen is a good foil too for Odenkirk as his wife Becca, with Munroe and Cadorath effective as Hutch's children.

Gonzalez and Morales are on target as the couple whose break-in sparks the whole bloody chain of events.

There is a welcome return to the big screen by Michael Ironside who pops up as Hutch's father-in-law Eddie Williams.

Eddie is a tough but fair man and insists on driving a hard bargain when his daughter's husband tries to buy his business.

Davison amuses as Eddie's cocky son Albert, while English actor Colin Salmon turns up as a mysterious espionage figure known as "The Barber" and RZA amuses as Hutch's brother Harry.

The actor, though, who comes closest to stealing the show is Christopher Lloyd who plays Hutch's dad.

Lloyd's David watches Westerns in his room in a nursing home with a rug around his legs but you know there is more to him than meets the eye.

He's a joy to watch but ultimately it is Odenkirk who prevails in a very well executed, wonderfully over the top, black comedy thriller.

Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski and film editors William Yeh and Evan Schiff play a major part in keeping the action steamrollering along.

And there's a very smart soundtrack that cleverly deploys old standards like Nina Simone's 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood,' Dean Hudson's 'Straighten Up and Fly Right,' Andy Williams' 'The Impossible Dream' and Louis Armstrong's 'What A Wonderful World'.

Gerry and the Pacemakers' iconic version of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' unexpectedly turns up and is almost reclaimed from the football terraces.

If you haven't been back to the cinema following months of lockdown, then let 'Nobody' be the film to lure you back.

Naishuller's movie is a terrific reminder of why we go to the movies.

Smart, raucous, inventive and very, very tongue in cheek, it will make you laugh.

It also has the capacity to surprise and knows exactly when to roll those surprises out.

'Nobody' is simply a hoot and it deserves to be a huge cult hit.

('Nobody' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on June 9, 2021)