‘Nobody 2’ review: Bob Odenkirk action sequel lacks a killer instinct | Reviews

Dir: Timo Tjahjanto. US. 2025. 89mins 

Bob Odenkirk’s family-man assassin returns in Nobody 2, but the first film’s nasty thrill is long gone. Following this former government operative as he tries to take his wife and children on a restorative vacation, quickly landing in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime boss, the ultra-violent sequel increases the bloodshed but also the emotion, although neither strategy makes up for the fact that this once-novel premise now just feels like another John Wick retread.

The meagre story mostly serves as an excuse for predictably over-the-top set pieces

Universal opens the film in the UK and US on August 15. The low-budget 2021 original was a sleeper hit, grossing approximately $58m worldwide, in the process transforming comedian and Better Call Saul star Odenkirk into an unlikely action figure. Although he is joined by newcomers Colin Hanks and Sharon Stone, Nobody 2’s chief appeal will be its continued connection to 87North, the production company headed by Kelly McCormick and David Leitch, who also oversaw John Wick and Bullet Train. 

Years earlier, Hutch (Odenkirk) put his hitman past behind him by marrying realtor Becca (Connie Nielsen) and starting a family. But after the events of Nobody, in which he tangled with wealthy, vindictive Russian criminals, he has had to go back to his old life in order to pay off a substantial debt. Completing deadly government assignments at night, Hutch hardly sees Becca or his kids Brady (Gage Munroe) and Sammy (Paisley Cadorath), sensing them pulling away from him. In a desperate bid to reconnect, he proposes they take an impromptu vacation to Plummerville, a laidback tourist town he loved as a boy. But once he loses his temper with the teenager of a corrupt local businessman (John Ortiz), leading to a violent altercation, Hutch gets on the radar of sleazy Sheriff Abel (Hanks) and maniacal crime kingpin Lendina (Stone). 

The first Nobody milked the novelty of casting everyman Odenkirk as an unlikely onetime hitman, who proved he had lost none of his lethal fighting skills. Inevitably, the sequel lacks that surprise, leaving co-writer Derek Kolstad (who created the John Wick and Nobody franchises) to find a fresh angle on an admittedly thin conceit. In response, he and Indonesian filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto, who most recently directed the Netflix action pictures The Big 4 and The Shadow Strays, explore Hutch’s guilt about neglecting his family — and then, later, putting them in harm’s way once Lendina wants them eliminated.

Unfortunately, the meagre story mostly serves as an excuse for predictably over-the-top set pieces, few of which rival the ones from the first film, to say nothing of those in John Wick and comparable pictures. In Nobody, Hutch fought a bunch of thugs on a bus — this time, he’s battling goons on a boat. To be sure, Tjahjanto provides these sequences with bruising action, mixed with a touch of dark comedy, but they are shot and staged without much distinction. And because the audience is now no longer startled to learn that nerdy Hutch can kill people, his ability to dispatch dozens of baddies feels anticlimactic.

Although Odenkirk first made his name in sketch comedy in the 1990s with his acclaimed cult series Mr. Show, more recently he has demonstrated superb dramatic chops on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. So portraying Hutch’s more mournful side in Nobody 2 as a distracted husband and father trying to repair his relationship with his family shouldn’t be too challenging. But because the script is riddled with inconsistencies and plot holes — including an unbelievable scene in which Hutch lashes out at the worst possible time in order to further the narrative — the character’s supposed inner struggle barely registers. 

Christopher Lloyd and RZA reprise their roles as, respectively, Hutch’s father and brother — both of whom have their own hitman background — which becomes Nobody 2’s way to  halfheartedly investigate how violence is passed down from generation to generation. (Hutch worries that Brady may have the same deep-seated anger as he does.) But these stabs at emotional sincerity are unconvincing, grinding the film to a halt whenever they’re meekly reintroduced.

Of the new cast members, Hanks doesn’t have the heft necessary to play a crooked small-town sheriff, while Stone overdoes her sociopathic villain, indiscriminately cursing up a storm and reveling in flamboyant behaviour that is neither menacing nor satiric. And, in a limp nod to gender equality, Nobody 2 lets the largely-sidelined Nielsen have a few moments to be an ass-kicker, too. But like this uninspired sequel as a whole, she doesn’t pack much of a punch.