Film Review: Nobody 2 殺神2 (2025) - USA
Rating: ★★★★☆ (8/10)
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
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Tagline: Odenkirk's Beleaguered Berserker Returns, Bigger and Bloodier (But Still Farmisht)
There’s no stopping the violently raging dad, not in life and certainly not at the multiplex. He’s a familiar type, a late-career steroid shot for certain actors (Liam Neeson built a franchise on it), capable of skewing hellish or heroic, often both. His violence can be as righteous as Abraham’s or as primal as Cain’s, burning slow to fuel a story until it explodes with consuming, cathartic intensity. And yes, sometimes it’s even funny, especially when embodied by the preternaturally put-upon Bob Odenkirk, an actor whose gift lies in making outwardly ordinary men seem like coiled springs of calculation and desperation behind those all-seeing eyes.
Odenkirk’s Mr. Average persona carries a heavy arsenal in “Nobody 2," the diverting, blood-soaked sequel to the 2021 surprise hit "Nobody." He returns as Hutch Mansell, the self-identified "nobody" – suburban schlub, failed garbage-bin wrangler, and former lethal asset for American intelligence. His picture-perfect dull life remains a thin veneer over a complicated past shared with his equally dangerous brother Harry (a reliably cool RZA) and their cackling, cigar-chomping ex-F.B.I. father David (the ever-delightful Christopher Lloyd, a national treasure deployed as live-wire comic relief).
The beauty of the first "Nobody" was its out-of-nowhere arrival during the pandemic's cinematic lull. Discovering it felt like unearthing a gem: a nimble, bare-bones actioner that welded Odenkirk’s comedic timing to explosive violence, creating an unlikely John Wick with the soul of a Walter Mitty. It stuck closely to the template but elevated it with offbeat humor and wittily choreographed fights that leveraged Odenkirk’s every wince and groan. He takes a punch like a man genuinely feeling it, then hits back like a piston operated by pure, aggrieved id.
Director Timo Tjahjanto (taking the reins from Ilya Naishuller) understands the assignment: stick to what worked, but turn it up to eleven. “Nobody 2" boasts a conspicuously bigger budget and a plot that amusingly evokes a "National Lampoon’s Vacation" gone savagely off-road. The core family – including Connie Nielsen’s wonderfully understated Mrs. Nobody – is back, joined by a rogues' gallery of new faces: John Ortiz as a weary local sheriff, Sharon Stone vamping it up deliciously as a villainess, and Colin Hanks as a nefarious type I couldn't help but mentally label "Evil Tom Hanks" (for obvious paternal reasons).
This time, the script (by original writer Derek Kolstad, co-writing with Aaron Rabin) adds a new kink: Hutch is shackled by a debt to shadowy evildoers, forcing him away from home and leaving a trail of gruesomely dispatched minions in his wake. Like most sequels, it ramps up “everything”. The body count climbs. The fight sequences, while still well-staged, shot, and edited for coherence, become more elaborate, more brutal, and gleefully (sometimes excessively) grisly. Skewerings and barbecued flesh feature prominently. I confess, the most sanguineous sections pushed my limits, though admittedly, sometimes I shut my eyes less from revulsion and more from a desperate desire to focus solely on Odenkirk’s glorious, “exceedingly” relatable farmisht countenance – that magnificent blend of bewilderment, exhaustion, and simmering rage. He’s had his fill. Who among us, facing the modern world and a garbage bin that just won’t cooperate, hasn’t?
“Nobody 2" doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It’s content to be a bigger, louder, bloodier echo of the first film’s successful formula. But that formula, anchored by Odenkirk’s uniquely compelling blend of vulnerability and viciousness, Lloyd’s scene-stealing glee, and Tjahjanto’s competent handling of mayhem, remains potent. It delivers the cathartic release of the raging dad fantasy, peppered with dark laughs and executed with style. It won’t convert the squeamish, but for fans of the original and the genre, it’s a satisfying, if slightly overstuffed, second helping of Hutch Mansell’s uniquely stressful brand of peacekeeping. (Neo 2025)