Nobody

Directed by Ilya Naishuller, Nobody follows Bob Odenkirk’s Hutch Mansell as he’s forced to put his long-dormant very special skills to work after his home is robbed. It’s familiar territory that is, for the most part, executed to better-than-average and consistently entertaining effect by Naishuller, as the filmmaker does a superb job of initially establishing the sympathetic central character and his decidedly humdrum existence – with the compelling atmosphere heightened by Naishuller’s off-kilter approach to Derek Kolstad’s screenplay and, more predominantly, to Odenkirk’s completely convincing performance as the increasingly hard-as-nails protagonist. And although the movie does suffer from its share of less-than-enthralling elements, including a somewhat hit-and-miss midsection and visuals that are often distractingly gritty, Nobody benefits substantially from its raft of appreciatively brutal and flat-out enthralling set-pieces – with the film’s high-water-mark an astonishingly entertaining battle between Hutch and several goons aboard a city bus. The balls-to-the-wall climax ultimately ensures that Nobody finishes on as engaging and satisfying a note as one could envision, which does, in the end, cement the picture’s place as a mostly above-average actioner that boasts a surprisingly engrossing (and believable) tough-guy turn by Odenkirk.

*** out of ****