Nobody 2 review – a quick cash grab

After the surprise success of 2021’s John Wick knock-off Nobody, it comes as no surprise that the Hollywood brain trust has decided to foist a quickie sequel onto the world. Nobody 2, from Indonesian filmmaker Timo Tjhajanto who takes the reins from the original’s Ilya Naishuller, provides us with the same film, but this time, sends all the characters on holiday. Tjhajanto himself has previously been trusted with plenty of direct-to-Netflix action titles and is in line to make The Beekeeper 2 for them later in the year. Nobody 2 shares these streaming sensibilities, offering absolutely no reason to exist other than a quick cash grab and to dutifully follow every sequel cliché in the book.

Following a prologue that mimics a motif from the first film counting down repetitive days in suburbia, we’re back with secret tough guy and former army auditor Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk), only this time he’s gone full time assassin. The appeal of Nobody and presumably its sequel is much to do with comic actor Odenkirk, playing against type as a ruthless, murdering tough guy. We join Hutch as he is paying off around $30 million in debt he amassed from taking down a Russian crime lord empire in the first film by doing these time-consuming hit jobs. So in order to decompress, he takes the family to the small tourist town of Plummerville and violent hijinks ensue.

The film doesn’t seem too concerned with what happens from here on in, and sets up a bunch of antagonists for Hutch and his reticently clued-in family in order to deploy its meagre action sequences. A film with so many fights should live and die by the success of its gory carnage, yet it tries and fails to namecheck the kind of balletic choreography of stronger titles such as The Raid or John Wick. There’s a sluggish predictability and bland execution to the film, and once all the pieces are in place, from corrupt small town sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks) to psychotic drug peddler Lendina (Sharon Stone), it all feels dead in the water. It’s no help that there’s zero characterisation across the board, with Stone especially labouring her character as she tries her best to go full whacko. A dog is even cynically produced as a cute plot device but is left on the wayside with no real effect on the storyline.

A film this unwilling to make any sort of profound statement needs to at least be dumb and fun, and it actually manages to be neither. Even though it stresses the importance of family in these life-or-death situations it never stretches to saying anything actually new or interesting on the subject. The finale, a bloodier Home Alone style battle in a water park, sums up the lack of spark this thing really has. No brains, no brawn, nobody cared about making this good.