Nobody 2's Biggest Sin Has Nothing To Do With The Action

This article contains spoilers for "Nobody 2."

Ilya Naishuller's "Nobody" exists in this tug of war between a "John Wick"-inspired bone breaker and a dark satire about an emasculated suburban dad who salivates at the thought of satiating his dormant bloodlust. It's a fun enough beat-em-up, with Bob Odenkirk giving more to Hutch Mansell than what's on the page. Even in its lulls, you can tell the "Better Call Saul" star really worked with the 87North stunt team to bring a level of physicality to his bloody brawls. With the 2021 film garnering mostly positive reviews and earning a decent success at the box office, it seemed all but inevitable that a sequel would be underway. Now that they've established that Hutch's family is well aware of their patriarch's deadly skills, it stands to reason that the next film would play on that.

In "Nobody 2," Hutch is back to his Auditor ways as a result of trying to pay off the $30 million debt he accrued in the first film by setting the Russian mafia's traveling bank on fire. He struggles to maintain his work-life balance, with the key difference this time being his family's annoyance that his bloody visits are making him an absentee father. Looking to get back on their good side, Hutch decides to take the Mansell clan on a family trip to Wild Bill's Majestic Midway and Water Park, the vacation spot he used to go to with his dad (Christopher Lloyd) and brother (RZA) during his childhood. But not even Hutch can resist starting trouble on vacation, leading him to uncover levels of corruption within the run-down summer town of Plummerville.

The prospect of "Nobody 2" became that much more interesting when Indonesian action filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto ("The Night Comes For Us") was announced to be filling in for Naishuller. Sadly, there's no real surprise, weight, or visual ingenuity to the bloody carnage, nor any memorable expansions from the first film. It makes you wonder why they bothered to get a filmmaker, whose memorable bouts of violence shine in his own movies, to direct something so neutered — besides the obvious. /Film's Witney Seibold was a bit more forgiving in his review, but among issues of thin plotting, lazy repetition, and poorly rendered CG violence, one of the biggest issues of "Nobody 2" comes down to its underutilized villain.

Sharon Stone's Lendina is introduced about halfway through the film as the real ruler of Plummerville, using the town Hutch spent his childhood summers in as a front running a bootlegging operation. Getting Stone to play an over-the-top villain who kills with a smile on her face is such a fun idea. Her turn as femme fatale Catherine Tramell in Paul Verhoeven's "Basic Instinct" proved she has more than the chops to make a formidably fun adversary, but "Nobody 2" squanders that potential.

Lendina's introduction follows the routine genre standard of showing a random underling in order to make a point. If you had guessed she stabs a cheating casino patron in the hand, then congrats, you've seen an action movie before. She takes a bunch of other people with little razors hidden in her fingernails, then leaves her goons to torch the entire room so as not to leave any witnesses. Some of Lendina's other little quirks are doing a dance in her black suit, holding her little bulldog, and being accompanied by her assassin bodyguards everywhere she goes. She's a lot like Aleksey Serebryakov's Yulian in the first film, where we get to see a sillier side alongside her violent mannerisms. The difference between the two is that Yulian actually feels like a character and gets infinitely more to do.

Lendina's presence in "Nobody 2" initially comes with this 'I'll burn everything to the ground just to spite you' mentality that feels like a front. She mostly gets everyone else to do her bidding for her, only stepping in when she's presented with an easy mark. There aren't a lot of opportunities for her to directly interact with Hutch as he beats her goons and torches her stash, with the pair only meeting in the film's final confrontation. It also happens to be the scene where Lendina gets taken out by way of Becca Mansell (Connie Nielsen) shooting her in the eye with a bear immobilizer rifle.

It just seems like such a waste of Stone's talents for so little. Lendina could be played by anyone else, and it wouldn't have an effect on the character, which isn't to say that Stone isn't up to the task — far from it. In fact, her involvement actually made me perk my ears at the prospect of her rivalry with Odenkirk, but much like this movie, there's very little on the page for her to work with. I'd argue she gets more interesting villainous things to do in 2004's "Catwoman." 

The first "Nobody" shows that this isn't a case of a murderer completely hiding within the confines of a family disguise, as Hutch's wife, Becca, indicates she's always known about his violent past. "Nobody 2" gives Nielsen more screen time as Becca attempts to rekindle that made her want to get married to her husband in the first place. Even more interestingly, there are hints throughout that Becca has her own violent past hiding beneath the surface. A bedside conversation gets into her passion about saving animals, followed by Nielsen saying, "among other things." It gives the impression they're two peas of the same killer pod, not to mention it offers a potential glimpse into their relationship outside of the conventional family unit.

The issue with this is that "Nobody 2" is littered with other cheeky teases, such as Becca being a surprisingly great shot at a carnival game, as well as an intense stare at the immobilizer gun, but the payoff never really comes. The tranquilizer cuts through Lendina's little throwing knives like butter as a result of mama bear energy and little else. It feels like the film has been cut to bits, leaving a lot of threads on the table. In fact, Odenkirk seems to confirm that the origins of Hutch and Becca's relationship were initially expanded upon before being exorcised from the story (via RogerEbert.com):

"We have a story about why they met, and we wrote a flashback to how they met in various drafts of the film that didn't make it in. Maybe it'll get into the third one, if there is one. Fingers crossed."

Some reports listed "Imaginary" actor Pyper Braun playing a young Becca alongside Nolan Grantham's young Hutch, who does appear in a brief flashback of making summer memories (via People). I wouldn't be overthinking this much of a silly little action movie evoking '80s-branded lunacy if the existing Derek Kolstad/Aaron Rabin-penned screenplay didn't purposefully lay seeds for a story it never decides to water. Becca may reconnect with Hutch in a climactic explosion set to Céline Dion's cover of "The Power of Love," but without the contextual support, their reunion doesn't really mean much of anything. The "Nobody" movies mostly use their women as story props, whether it be Stone's untapped potential, Nielsen's underdevelopment, or Paisley Cadorath's Sammy Mansell as her father's inadvertent catalyst for violence.

"Nobody 2" is now playing in theaters nationwide.