- Date of Release: 22 August 2025
- Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime, Thriller
- Language: English
- Watch On: Theatres Only
Nobody 2
Introduction
Do you guys remember Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) from Nobody (2021)? An average joe with a very specific skill set caught in a job that goes about his life in a rather mundane manner, until all hell breaks loose! The beauty of the first film was exactly that – its unpredictability! It was like taking a standard action template and turning it on its head with a sub-genre that was far too unassuming to fit into the main genre. And that is exactly why the film had worked too. The new English film Nobody 2, the sequel of Nobody is as boring as the effort spent on naming the film. It is kind of that low effort film that you choose to make for the heck of it. To me Nobody 2 resembled that one standup comic that would have surprised you with his humour once upon a time, but since then has been bombing given the repetitive nature of his written material.
Nobody 2 resembles my drawing from the first grade that comprised of a mountain, a river, a house, a tree, and a sun with a smiley face – something that met with a lot of appreciation back in the day, but later met with a lot of criticism and laughter while I repeated it through the years until the tenth grade (yes, true story😂). And the only barter for originality was that tree which would go from orange to apple to mango based on the availability of crayons of that colour – just like Nobody 2 that has nothing new to offer while simply opting for a change in the setting with the same ol’ template. *Yawns*
Story & Screenplay
The low effort of Nobody 2 can be witnessed with its low-brow premise, that deviates from all the directions that the film could have go to, after the end of the first film. Hutch is now an assassin working for The Barber (Collin Salmon) in order to pay off his debt that he owes after destroying the Russian obshchak. But that distances him from his family and his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen), until Hutch decides to opt for a break and take his family on a trip to Plummerville. It remains one of those childhood memories for Hutch, who only seems to remember this place of everything from his past (how convenient), so much so that he has no clue that Plummerville is a town with an amusement park used only as a front for a cartel that uses this town as a bootlegging route. Ahhh well, simple harmless premise that soon transforms into a handicapped match of sorts!
The surprise element that remained the key ingredient of the first part, doesn’t find a substitute here. As a result, much of the humour remains either misplaced or plain predictable even during the fight sequences of the film. Even the tone of the drama remains inconsistent in that regard – the fight sequence involving Hutch’s return to his alpha self for the first time in a new town has a playful undertone to begin with, but the way that sequence unfolds, it made me realise that the film has got its grammer wrong. That streak of playfulness needed to be maintained throughout, as opposed to getting into a moderately serious territory. The exact criticism is true for the next action sequence at a boat – the tone remains playful wherein that sequence could have actually ventured into mildly serious territory, given how that unfolds after a particular revelation. Either this, or the playful tone needed to be maintained through and through like the one in The Naked Gun (2025) to atleast add some consistency to the drama.
The weakest element from a writing perspective is in the form of the characterization of the antagonist Lendina (Sharon Stone) who is hardly threatening. The writing firstly doesn’t give her enough screentime, and secondly, turns her into a classic franchise caricature that completely dilutes the impact of the drama. One look at Hutch, and you always knew who the ultimate winner of the drama was going to be. It also doesn’t help that some characters around Hutch are neglected too. Remember Harry (RZA) and David (Christopher Lloyd), and how zany those characters were in the first part, almost contributing to the humour in the drama? That zing was missing, even as both these characters were kept on the fringes.
The criticism also extends to the character of Hutch who doesn’t necessarily have a personal stake in the drama this time around. It is almost as if he is fighting someone else’s battle that makes you scratch your head – why is Hutch doing things to endanger his family on a vacation? There is no scope for logic even as Hutch burns a pile of cash that is randomly lying on the floor because banks don’t exist? And that is the kind of the low hanging fruit that the makers go for here – transforming an arcade and an amusement park in a war-like finale that may have seemed promising on paper, but hardly seemed excited on celluloid. It was like that video game that one would play on the easiest level, almost guaranteeing you a win on any day of the week! And what about the ‘extras’ who doubled up as bots were with one job to have themselves get shot? What was that climax even? Where was the fun in it? What was the motive of the film? The bar of entertainment cannot be this low!
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues try and be witty but they lack the zing of the first part, that immediately stemmed out of the unpredictability of the drama. The BGM also felt like a cover of a popular song ‘The Ring Of Fire’ by Johnny Cash. Talk about some low-brow effort right there, even as the notes hardly elevate the drama or even seem remotely memorable. The cinematography is good, atleast trying and building on the tongue in cheek humour through a couple of well choreographed action set-pieces. But again the editing didn’t allow any of these sequences to come together with a pattern that felt choppy. In fact, this trend is now quite worrying – the inclusion of fast cuts to supposedly elevate an action set-piece when the bare minimum expectation is for it to be a single long take. It happened in Karate Kid Legends (2025) and it has happened again here but to a lesser extent.
Director Timo Tjahjanto just doesn’t have his heart in place here unlike some of his earlier works in the form of Headshot (2016) or The Night Comes For Us (2018). The effort is superficial and forced almost giving an impression that he just wasn’t interested here. Neither the characterization is interesting nor the setting, and even the humour is majorly missing here. All you have is some hollow action set-pieces that may seem to be mildly entertaining but never resulting in a high that you expect from an action film. The direction is a big miss here!
Performances
The performances are hardly worth writing anything about. Paisley Cadorath as Sammy, Gage Monroe as Brady and Collin Salmon as The Barber are hardly there in the film. Christopher Lloyd as David and RZA as Harry are woefully wasted too. John Ortiz as Wyatt and Colin Hanks as Sheriff Abel looked quite disinterested, and seldom boast of any high moments with respect to their sketchy characters. Connie Nielsen as Becca plays the disappearing act in the film really well, because her character was hardly there and didn’t add up at the end at all. Sharon Stone as Lendina hams her way through her character while being a villainous caricature in the purest sense. Even Bob Odenkirk as Hutch is visibly disinterested like Bhoi’s every film lately, restricting his fun and coming across as someone who is sleepwalking through his role. That brought me to the point – why make a film when everyone felt disinterested?
Conclusion
Nobody 2 is an epic misfire in the purest sense. More specifically, it is a needless sequel that Nobody would give two hoots about. Everyone was disinterested onscreen, and well…so was I watching them! Available in a theatre near you.