At some point in the last decade Hollywood decided that what the public desired was an endless supply of knockoffs of Renny Harlin's 1996 action comedy The Long Kiss Goodnight. It seems like at least once a month either Amazon, Netflix or Apple drops yet another action comedy in which a suburbanite is revealed to have a past life as a deadly secret agent or assassin. The nature of streaming platforms means it's difficult to tell if anyone actually watches these movies. That they keep getting made suggests somebody must be watching, but when was the last time you heard someone mention Back in Action? The only worthwhile movie to come out of this inexplicable and undemanded wave was 2021's Nobody, which stood out from its peers by not only playing in cinemas, but actually featuring some entertaining action and comedy.
Just like Geena Davis, that movie saw Bob Odenkirk play a suburban parent who reverts to their past life as an assassin. The movie worked largely because Odenkirk is such an everyman that it made the central gag land, though by its climax it essentially resembled your average Liam Neeson action movie.
The trouble with this sequel is that it can't tell the same joke again. Odenkirk's Hutch Mansell is now fully established as an action hero rather than the mild-mannered shlub we initially met. As such, there's a lot less potential for comedy here, and this sequel is notably light on laughs.
As though aware of this, the producers have opted for an acclaimed international action director in Timo Tjahjanto, who has garnered a cult following for his bone-crunching Indonesian martial arts spectacles like Headshot and The Night Comes For Us. But ever since the '90s, when Hollywood snapped up every director eager to get out of Hong Kong before the handover, Asian action auteurs have been struggling to translate their insurance-worrying style to American cinema, largely because the western actors they're lumbered with are unable to perform their own stunts. With the first Nobody, Russian director Ilya Naishuller (who probably wasn't asked to return due to his nationality) made up for this shortfall with some clever action choreography and editing that convinced us Odenkirk was a badass. Tjahjanto tries to stage Nobody 2 as though he were still working in Asia, and as a result the action scenes here lack the adrenalised ferocity of the first film as a bunch of brawny white guys struggle to replicate the moves of nimble Indonesian martial artists.
Nobody 2 adopts the old sequel trope of sending the characters on holiday, with Hutch taking his family to Plummerville, a tacky resort for which he has fond childhood memories. But the film squanders any potential to parody this trope. The movie's promising trailer, which featured a cover of Lindsey Buckingham's 'Holiday Road', the theme from National Lampoon's Vacation, was more knowing than the actual film in this regard.
In Plummerville, Hutch makes several enemies, including local sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks), theme park owner Wyatt (John Ortiz) and a genuinely scary Sharon Stone as mob matriarch Lendina. Relishing her role as a deranged psychopath, Stone is the film's MVP, but her character is introduced too late to make much of an impact.
The film initially posits Hutch as being worn down by his work as an assassin, but Odenkirk's somnambulistic performance is that of an actor who has similarly grown tired of a role. The returning Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd and RZA as Hutch's wife, father and brother are given nothing of note to work with this time.
With the punchline having been delivered halfway through the first film, Nobody 2 is like watching a stand-up comic forced to perform an encore when they've already used up their best material.
Directed by: Timo Tjahjanto
Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Sharon Stone, Connie Nielsen, RZA, Michael Ironside, Paisley Cadorath, Christopher Lloyd, Colin Hanks, John Ortiz
