Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Spring 2021 Edition

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

What Fassbinder work are you discussing (or is your reader just supposed to look that up)? (Your too brief dalliance with IMDb summaries was a very good idea). On the face of it Ozon/Fassbinder sounds like a very odd couple.

Tropfen auf heisse Steine - it's a play that he wrote but never directed or filmed. The IMDB summary was a joke, but if it can help...

In 1970s Germany, a 50-year-old businessman falls in love with a 20-year-old man.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

IMDB Summary: A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.

@kihei - this IMDB Summary isn't even right... you've seen the film, the man doesn't "accidentally" get into the time machine!

Edit: the Gouttes d'eau one might be even dumber as it's obviously the 20-year-old's story (he's pretty much Fassbinder's avatar in the play)

 

[kihei]

@kihei - this IMDB Summary isn't even right... you've seen the film, the man doesn't "accidentally" get into the time machine!

You could...oh, I don't know...edit it, correct it, fix it...something along those lines.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

You could...oh, I don't know...edit it, correct it, fix it...something along those lines.

Doesn't sound like me.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Didn't get the appeal, personally, and I'm not one of those folks who holds his nose up at slice of life artworks. Maybe Scarlet Johansson's breakdown to the lawyer was a pretty good scene but I found Driver impotent, lame and an embarassing stand-in (made worse by his fit at the end) but I generally find Baumbach to be a big fat zero. While We're Young is the one movie from an acclaimed filmmaker that's always stuck in my head for how stupid and silly it was. He reeks of unoriginal Woody Allen wannabe to me.

I'm with you on Baumbach, really not a fan of what I've seen, except for Marriage Story. Of course, the appeal for me is very specific to my reading - here's my original comment:

Marriage Story (Baumbach, 2019) - Amazing film. It feels like a rather simple family drama and it's very effective - nicely written, superbly acted, and emotionally complex enough to be meaningful. And on top of that, you've got an autoreflexive level that's subtle and nuanced enough that it's not intrusive and doesn't bring forced distanciation (which I often enjoy, but here you can watch and enjoy the film without noticing any of its reflexivity). Through all their legal procedure, she remains an actress and him a director. She's playing her part as directed by her lawyer, rehearsing for auditions with the investigating lady, while on the other side, he fires his lawyer and hires a more suitable one for the part (the one that wants to rearrange the narrative), he arranges the set with plants and drawings for the investigating lady (with the help of his theater team), etc. And then there's these bits - at a moment where he feels brushed aside by his son - where he dresses as the Invisible Man (and later on as a simple ghost) and where he wants to dress his son not as Frankenstein (as it's being said), but as the monster. Loved the musical numbers too - maybe at that point there was a little distanciation, but easily normalized in the narrative. Loved it. 9/10

 

[Pink Mist]

The Avengers: Infinity War (2018) directed by Anthony and Joe Russo

The broken-up superhero team of the Avengers reunite with some new (read: too many) friends in order to save the universe from the supervillain Thanos who has a genocidal bent to kill half the beings in the universe. So sets up two and a half hours of unrelenting action and spectacle with not a second to pause to catch your breath. There’s a reason there’s a saying that too much is a bad thing and this is a great example of it. Its just so exhausting to watch action scene after action scene, of things blowing up, and characters swinging by, that its easy to forget that the writing in this just sucks and the relationships are contrived and unbelievable (particularly between the Vision and Wanda). Can’t fool me though, I was paying just enough attention to notice the lack of soul in the movie. The only good parts of watching this is appreciating that the MCU finally has a memorable villain and that we’re “in the end game”, aka there’s only a couple of these left for me to watch.

The Marvel Moment: My Ongoing Rankings of the Marvel Movies

1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2. Guardians of the Galaxy
3. Thor: Ragnarok
4. Captain America: The First Avenger
5. Iron Man
6. Doctor Strange
7. Thor
8. Spider-man: Homecoming
9. Ant-Man
10. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
11. The Avengers
12. Avengers: Age of Ultron
13. Iron Man 3
14. Black Panther
15. Thor: The Dark World
16. Captain America: Civil War
17. The Avengers: Infinity War
18. Iron Man 2
19. The Incredible Hulk

 

[Osprey]

The Seventh Seal [Det sjunde inseglet] (1957) directed by Ingmar Bergman

Returning disillusioned from the Crusades to a Swedish countryside death ridden from the plague, a knight (Max von Sydow) challenges Death (Bengt Ekerot), who has come to take his life, to a game of chess to prolong living. This classic film left me feeling cold that first time I watched it a couple of years ago, however returning to it now it finally clicked and I’ve warmed to it and it was a really enjoyable watch. Calling it an enjoyable watch may seem odd given its plot summary, but what the summary hides is the amount of humour (mostly gallows humour) Bergman injects into what otherwise could have been a very solemn film about death (or Death if you prefer). I had forgotten how funny and witty this film is, not claiming its a comedy because its not, but the humour in the film is underappreciated and brings a lightness to its subject manner. Anyway, my second viewing of this film blew me away and I think a lot of why it worked for me this time is the humour in Bergman’s script (not to mention his iconic direction, excellent use of lighting and shadows, von Sydow and Ekerot’s fantastic performances along with the rest of the cast of Bergman regulars, and so on).

Also a good movie to watch during the pandemic, I haven't seen it brought up often when people talk about pandemic movies.

It just doesn't have the same effect after you've seen the superior rendition:

 

[Spring in Fialta]

I'm with you on Baumbach, really not a fan of what I've seen, except for Marriage Story. Of course, the appeal for me is very specific to my reading - here's my original comment:

It's a good review but I can't help but think that the narrative trick (actress keeps 'acting' in real life, same for the director) is something that appears more clever and interesting to some viewers (not to me - or at least not how Baumbach executed it) than something that I find particularly interesting or impressive on the part of the writer-director (so long as one is in the process of writing one wouldn't have to go too far to stumble upon the idea). Also, in 'honest' drama, sentiment, IMO, becomes particularly important. I couldn't stand Marriage Story's in that regard and its self-pity (an emotion I have little tolerance for in the first place, certainly to a fault even in regards to myself) is an aspect of the film that I could not stomach. Side players had awful energy and mainstream, privileged filmmakers making fun of the star system/Hollywood always rings lame and hollow to me (i.e., you're not separate from it, make your money there and suffers a similar downfall to something like Schitt's Creek: it screams haha, yeah we privileged people deserve to be made fun of and criticized but not too much, please, thanks). In the marriage drama type, two recent films that blow it out of the water are Revolutionary Road and Blue Valentine. What they have going for them is what Marriage Story sorely lacks: an outside, dominant hand that allows it to gain a detachment and self-awareness that heightens the story without diminishing the stakes.

Sorry for the rant. Again, my position on the film says more about myself than it probably does about the film but I really dislike Baumbach.

Ohhhh...talking about Revolutionary Road, here's a quote from the novel's author (Richard Yates) that really rings true about how I think Marriage Story comes across:

'The whole point of crying was to quit before you cornied it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so easily corrupted: let yourself go and you start embellishing your own sobs.'

Thank God for good writers.

 

[Osprey]

Hard Kill (2020) - 2/10 (Hated it)

A bald ex-soldier (Bruce Willis, who else?) employs a team of bearded mercenaries (because beards make you tough) to rescue his Botoxed daughter from an unconvincing villain. I'll start with the positives. It's short. Now, the negatives. The acting is simply dreadful across the board. It's as if the filmmakers knew that Willis would mail it in and hired actors that would make him look better. It doesn't help that the dialogue is just as awful and repeatedly cringeworthy. Consider this early exchange... "If we do it, we do it MY way." "So, you'll do it?"... or when the villain menacingly says "I'm going to torture her and I'm gonna make you watch the whole thing" (yes, the writers actually had him say "torture" instead of hinting at it or being explicit, either of which would've been more interesting). Speaking of which, the villain (who sports a beard, himself, of course) is so weak that it's amazing to think that someone got paid to cast him. He also has what I guess was supposed to be a cool villain nickname, "The Pardoner," but it just sounds like the characters are saying "pard'ner" all film long, as if it's a John Wayne western. If that isn't bad enough, he delivers his big villain monologue near the end of the film in which he dramatically tells the story of why he nicknamed himself that. The plot is incoherent. There's talk of a "Project 725" that the bad guy wants that may as well be "MacGuffin 725." The whole film takes place in an abandoned warehouse, probably the cheapest location that they could get. All of the gunfights take place in a single room of that warehouse and, thus, look the same. During them, the elite, trained soldiers step out from cover to shoot. Finally, if you figure that it might at least be nice watching Bruce Willis kick butt, the only time that he even picks up a gun is to shoot someone in the back. He basically does nothing in the movie except sit or stand in one place and talk.

This movie should've been called Hard Pass. IMDb lists 31 producers. I'm not sure what's more surprising: that 31 producers couldn't produce a better film or that 31 producers wanted their names attached to it. It's so bad that reviewing it while watching it is the only thing helping me get through it. Don't believe the 62% audience score at RT. It must've been inflated. If you want a laugh, though, read the audience reviews. The vast majority of the recent ones are half a star. They weren't even generous enough to give a whole 1 star. I wish that I had noticed that before starting it. It's on Netflix, so it's basically free, but I'd wait until Netflix offers a subscription level in which they pay you to watch movies before choosing this (and, even then, you might still regret it).

 

[kihei]

The Courier (2021) Directed by Dominic Cooke 4A

The Courier is among the dullest spy movies that I have ever seen. Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch), an innocuous businessman, is contacted by both the CIA and MI6 and talked into being a courier for a Russian politician named Oleg (Merab Ninidze) who is worried that his country is flirting with starting a nuclear war. Based on a true story that took place just before and during the Cuban missile crisis, the real suspense takes place offstage while these guys are stuck trading envelopes. Cumberbatch is perfect for the role and Georgian actor Ninidze is equally good, but they are stuck with an uninspired script and an unappealing mise en scene. Not a fun way to spend an evening.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Hard Kill (2020) - 2/10 (Hated it)

A bald ex-soldier (Bruce Willis, who else?) employs a team of bearded mercenaries (because beards make you tough) to rescue his Botoxed daughter from an unconvincing villain. I'll start with the positives. It's short. Now, the negatives. The acting is simply dreadful across the board. It's as if the filmmakers knew that Willis would mail it in and hired actors that would make him look better. It doesn't help that the dialogue is just as awful and repeatedly cringeworthy. Consider this early exchange... "If we do it, we do it MY way." "So, you'll do it?"... or when the villain menacingly says "I'm going to torture her and I'm gonna make you watch the whole thing" (yes, the writers actually had him say "torture" instead of hinting at it or being explicit, either of which would've been more interesting). Speaking of which, the villain (who sports a beard, himself, of course) is so weak that it's amazing to think that someone got paid to cast him. He also has what I guess was supposed to be a cool villain nickname, "The Pardoner," but it just sounds like the characters are saying "pard'ner" all film long, as if it's a John Wayne western. If that isn't bad enough, he delivers his big villain monologue near the end of the film in which he dramatically tells the story of why he nicknamed himself that. The plot is incoherent. There's talk of a "Project 725" that the bad guy wants that may as well be "MacGuffin 725." The whole film takes place in an abandoned warehouse, probably the cheapest location that they could get. All of the gunfights take place in a single room of that warehouse and, thus, look the same. During them, the elite, trained soldiers step out from cover to shoot. Finally, if you figure that it might at least be nice watching Bruce Willis kick butt, the only time that he even picks up a gun is to shoot someone in the back. He basically does nothing in the movie except sit or stand in one place and talk.

This movie should've been called Hard Pass. IMDb lists 31 producers. I'm not sure what's more surprising: that 31 producers couldn't produce a better film or that 31 producers wanted their names attached to it. It's so bad that reviewing it while watching it is the only thing helping me get through it. Don't believe the 62% audience score at RT. It must've been inflated. If you want a laugh, though, read the audience reviews. Nearly all of the recent ones are 1 star or less. I wish that I had noticed that before starting it. It's on Netflix, so it's basically free, but I'd wait until Netflix offers a subscription level in which they pay you to watch movies before choosing this.

What happened to Bruce Willis? It's like he went the Steven Seagal route when he had the way bigger career. Interesting note about the review too. I want to get into recent literature and that's one thing that seems to be recurrent for a lot of contemporary books that got acclaim in mainstream publications. They don't match audience reaction at all and tend to have low scores on sites like Goodreads and reading the reviews on Goodreads, it's tough to shake that their points are more convincing/thought-out then media publications.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Combien tu m'aimes? (How Much Do You Love Me?, Blier, 2005) – Contrarily to Ozon, who after his third film dropped the eccentricity and became a very serious dude, Blier's relation to the absurd went growing. Revisiting Combien tu m'aimes? right after Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes was a very interesting (even if random) decision. If the Ozon film must be very troubling for gender studies aficionados, the Blier one is clearly a pure nightmare. Once again, the IMDB summary was written by someone who didn't speak French and had no available subtitles, so here's the appropriate Pranzo one: you find a gorgeous whore, you promise her a lot of money to come live with you, and once she's broken every relation with her past life, just admit you don't have a penny for her... and she'll stay, because she's a woman, and women love only two things apart from money: being looked at and getting f***ed. It's misogynistic, it's objectifying, and it's absurd. And with Blier's detached second-degree irony, you're in a blur as to what you should blame or praise the film for. It's a weaker film by Blier, but still interesting enough to be worth a look. It presents some different levels of narration with overexposed shots and sudden set disappearance (including an amazing monologue by Jean-Pierre Darroussin, who steals the show – well except for Monica Belluci's curves, which are the sole excuse for making the film in the first place), and it has some fine Blier humor. He's one of my favorite French directors, but if you're not familiar with his work, it's not the right introduction. 6/10

*I don't think the "Combien" in the title translates very well to English - it's asking for a numerical value.

 

[Puck]

The Comeback Trail, Directed by George Gallo, 6.0+

A film producer in debt to the mob finances a badly written Western movie in the hopes of the production killing its aging star to collect the insurance money (with no intention of finishing the film).

A remake of a 1982 film that I never saw. The original gets a 7.0 rating on IMDB whereas this only gets a 5.5 but I liked it better than that. It's shot and edited like an old-fashioned movie made in the 60's, it's predictable, the script writing plays out like a soap opera. The old guys (DeNiro, Freeman, and Tommy Lee Jones) mail it in but with all that said, it was good enough, they seemed to have a blast doing it. Zach Braff is actually pretty good in this. This film won't win any accolades, it won't make any top ten lists but it doesn't pretend to try and overall it was fun to watch.

(In a sense, this film reminded me a bit of the Terry Gilliam film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, with Tommy Lee Jones playing the role of Don Quixote. That film was a flop IMHO but without even trying The Comeback Trail does it one better (not the same plotline at all but a film within a film with an old washed up guy on his horse reliving the dream (Jones), a corrupt Boss (DeNiro) and a naive younger man (Zach Braff) trying to figure things out). Emile Hirsch seems to be channeling his inner Jack Black in his role as a competing producer, he might have been funnier imitating Woody Allen.)

Dated old fashioned style flick, not great on execution, but still lotsa fun.

 

[Puck]

I'm also not big on Baumbach anymore either. I did like Frances Ha but some of his latest projects were duds IMHO. I passed on watching Marriage Story, wasn't even curious. I disagree with people comparing him to Woody Allen, he's not even close. His understudy Greta Gerwig seems to have surpassed him.

p.s. I tend to also agree that Bruce Willis seems to have gone the way of Steven Seagal or Nicolas Cage lately. But if you look at his IMDB page, he has about 9 future projects on the go. Hopefully some are decent. I did enjoy Once Upon a Time in Venice (2017) though.

It's too bad about The Courier. I had that on queue until reading Kihei's review. I watched The Comeback Trail instead. Glad I did.

 

[Osprey]

What happened to Bruce Willis? It's like he went the Steven Seagal route when he had the way bigger career. Interesting note about the review too. I want to get into recent literature and that's one thing that seems to be recurrent for a lot of contemporary books that got acclaim in mainstream publications. They don't match audience reaction at all and tend to have low scores on sites like Goodreads and reading the reviews on Goodreads, it's tough to shake that their points are more convincing/thought-out then media publications.

While I was reading about that film, I learned of two other low-rated 2020 action movies that Willis did. Add those to this one and the awful 2021 one of his that I saw only last month (but can't even remember the name of [Edit: I looked it up... Cosmic Sin, another great title]) and that's at least 4 action movies in less than a year for him. He appears to be taking any role that pays well (leaving no budget for the rest of the film's expenses) and has low commitment (Hard Kill was supposedly shot in only 10 days in one location and required no physical exertion on his part). It seems that he's trying to make bank through quantity rather than quality and just doesn't care if he's in trash as long as he's paid and can quickly move on to the next similar project.

I know that some here haven't been fans of Liam Neeson's most recent movies, but all of them are way better than Willis' most recent. In fact, maybe kihei and Pranzo should watch one or two recent Willis action movies so that they'd have a whole new appreciation for Neeson's.

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Any of you know a streaming service called AsianCrush? Seems to be free with ads (cough Adblocker cough) and has a bunch of Asian films on it. This one for example is a South Korean one with a 7.8 on imdb and 3.6 on LB (it's on Prime Canada as well though).

AsianCrush | Always

Hoosiers (1986) - 7/10

Very standard sports movie but also standard-setting in a way. More character than action focused for the first half and quite melodramatic. The basketball shots are good and it's mainly the Gene Hackman/Dennis Hopper show. Also Dennis Hopper is a better actor than Hackman imo.

 

[kihei]

Nobody (2021) Directed by Ilya Naishuller 3A

The set-up is kind of fun for about thirty minutes. Mild-mannered Hutch (Bob Odenkirk) manages to thwart a home invasion without harming anybody. But he doesn't feel good about it. He has a nice wife and family in the suburbs, but life has become predictable as his wife and he have slowly drifted further and further apart. When he finds out that the thieves have stolen his little daughter's kitty bracelet, he snaps. Long dormant skills come to the surface and Hutch finds he prefers his revenge not served cold, but piping hot. From which point the movie plays whack-a-mole endlessly with cardboard bad guys the rest of the way...with nothing else to offer. Odenkirk is cast against type but entertaining, the direction has a certain flair...but, then, the whole enterprise began to feel more than a little pathetic, a cash grab with a premise that devolves into cartoon violence and ludicrous characters. And what an underlying message: change your life for the better; get really mad and kill people in large numbers....might even get the missus interested in sex again. Nobody is a movie that nobody needs.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Population 436

with Jeremy Sisto, Fred Durst (yes, really), and other people.

Jeremy Sisto is Steve Katy, a US census taker who has wound up in picturesque Rockwell Falls, North Dakota. Way in the middle of nowhere, everyone's got the Amish fashion sense and tech level going on. Delivery drivers show up, drop goods off, then bail for the open road even as you ask them directions. Huh. Seems like a great spot for some weird cult! Steve takes quite a while to catch on to the obvious as it's being smashed into his face scene after scene. He's into numbers...and he's trying to figure out why Rockwell Falls has had a population of 436 since before the US civil war. Fred Durst is the deputy assigned to keep an eye on him and stare vacantly as Steve macks all over his would-be fiancee. Non-suspense happens.

Weird probably direct to cable or video effort from about 15 years ago. Jeremy Sisto's not bad in it, Fred Durst can't act any better than he can sing or rap or write songs. I'm jealous if you need to google Fred Durst. He sucks generally. Anyway, so does this movie. Yet another "Little Small Town Utopia USA with something horribly wrong with it" thing. You'll see every plot point coming a half hour before the cast. There's a reason why it sunk like a brick. Ten bucks says if you ask Jeremy Sisto about this movie, he'll say he has no idea what you're talking about.

On Prime. Don't watch it. It's crap.

"Chocolate Starfish...isn't that a badass album title, best friend in the world who I met yesterday?" "I'm...just...gonna...stand here..."

 

[Osprey]

Nobody (2021) - 7/10 (Really liked it)

After a couple of petty criminals steal his daughter's kitty cat bracelet, a suburban family man (Bob Odenkirk) sets out to get it back and brings the Russian mafia down upon himself. Written and produced by the same guys who made the John Wick series, the plot is largely a clone of the first one. A similarly ridiculous catalyst (a bracelet instead of a puppy) triggers a seemingly mild-mannered, past-middle-aged man to go scorched earth and brutally kill wave after wave of Russian henchmen. Add to that a great deal of dark humor that had me laughing often, a very good soundtrack of mostly popular oldies that had me tapping my feet... oh, and Christopher Lloyd in a fun supporting role... and I found it even more entertaining than John Wick. Odenkirk may not have Keanu Reeves' charisma, but he's a better actor and his character is more relatable. Sure, there's hardly a plot, what there is is predictable, the villains are caricatures and it's totally unbelievable that someone who looks like your shop teacher could take on half a dozen trained killers at once and kill each in a different way, but that's all part of the fun. If that suits you and you enjoy action movies like John Wick, Taken and The Equalizer, then Nobody might be the most entertaining new movie that you've seen since the pandemic started. It's certainly what I needed, especially after watching one of Bruce Willis' latest disasters last night. It's in theaters and now for rent on several streaming services, such as Google and YouTube.

 

[Puck]

Nobody is a genre I personally call a Gamer shooter film along the lines of John Wick, Boss Level or Jason Statham's Crank. Like a first person shooter game, the protagonist (with more lives than a cat) gets to shoot up the bad guys like fish in a game console barrel. The tweak that script-writer Kolstad brought to this one however was making his hero more human, more vulnerable at first, before he goes on a super-human rampage. I guess he figured the average Joe stuck at home in his man-cave with his Playstation would relate better and appreciate it more. These films don't need much of a storyline, the entertainment comes basically from the action sequences (you shot my dog is enough to get things going). I don't mind that usually, I can also watch movies for just the escapist, action entertainment value. For some reason though, Nobody's schtick didn't click with me like the others, maybe because I thought it was too much of a copy-cat to Wick?

I know Nobody will be liked out there, there just aren't that many entertainment options during a pandemic, but I didn't bite; maybe because I thought it was too much of a clone trying to ride the Wick recipe coat-tails for a quick cheap endorphin rush in the gamer-verse. You can only go to that well so often, then it gets predictively repetitious. I just didn't believe Kolstad improved on the neo-noir shooter script recipe; perhaps I watched it too closely after seeing Crank High Voltage and Boss Level in a month. Maybe I should spread out the viewing of the mindless action stuff more, and give my head a chance to reboot. I might also be watching too many flicks during a pandemic lockdown and getting cranky.

 

[Puck]

By the way, both Nobody and The Comeback Trail have a skit hidden midway through the credits. The first has a skit begging for the sequel, the second is a trailer for an imaginary porn-trash flick, both kinda funny in a weird sort of way.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

I'm also not big on Baumbach anymore either. I did like Frances Ha but some of his latest projects were duds IMHO. I passed on watching Marriage Story, wasn't even curious. I disagree with people comparing him to Woody Allen, he's not even close. His understudy Greta Gerwig seems to have surpassed him.

p.s. I tend to also agree that Bruce Willis seems to have gone the way of Steven Seagal or Nicolas Cage lately. But if you look at his IMDB page, he has about 9 future projects on the go. Hopefully some are decent. I did enjoy Once Upon a Time in Venice (2017) though.

It's too bad about The Courier. I had that on queue until reading Kihei's review. I watched The Comeback Trail instead. Glad I did.

Oh, I didn't mean to compare Baumbach to Allen in terms of quality. I agree, at his peak, Allen is about 1000x the filmmaker that Baumbach has ever been. I just think that Allen spawned a lot of bad imitators with Baumbach a leading one.

 

[Pink Mist]

Hope [Håp] (2019) directed by Maria Sødahl

A woman in her 40s (Andrea Bræin Hovig), who is married to a much older man (Stellan Skarsgård) and has a large blended family of his and her own children, is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer over the Christmas holidays. With weeks to live, the couple struggle to manager her diagnosis but in the process begin to mend their fractured relationship. I’ve been meaning to watch this one for a long time, and I finally tracked it down last night. It was definitely worth the wait. Sødahl crafts a superb character study on grief and illness and its impact on relationships and family. I read that the story is personal, based on Sødahl’s own life, and you can tell that it is a very personal project, and it feels very authentic. Hovig and Skarsgård’s performances are a tour de force as they display a very intimate and nuanced relationship. The film tears at your heartstrings without being sentimental and without the usual cancer-movie cliché. Very powerful movie.

 

[Osprey]

Nobody is a genre I personally call a Gamer shooter film along the lines of John Wick, Boss Level or Jason Statham's Crank. Like a first person shooter game, the protagonist (with more lives than a cat) gets to shoot up the bad guys like fish in a game console barrel. The tweak that script-writer Kolstad brought to this one however was making his hero more human, more vulnerable at first, before he goes on a super-human rampage. I guess he figured the average Joe stuck at home in his man-cave with his Playstation would relate better and appreciate it more. These films don't need much of a storyline, the entertainment comes basically from the action sequences (you shot my dog is enough to get things going). I don't mind that usually, I can also watch movies for just the escapist, action entertainment value. For some reason though, Nobody's schtick didn't click with me like the others, maybe because I thought it was too much of a copy-cat to Wick?

I know Nobody will be liked out there, there just aren't that many entertainment options during a pandemic, but I didn't bite; maybe because I thought it was too much of a clone trying to ride the Wick recipe coat-tails for a quick cheap endorphin rush in the gamer-verse. You can only go to that well so often, then it gets predictively repetitious. I just didn't believe Kolstad improved on the neo-noir shooter script recipe; perhaps I watched it too closely after seeing Crank High Voltage and Boss Level in a month. Maybe I should spread out the viewing of the mindless action stuff more, and give my head a chance to reboot. I might also be watching too many flicks during a pandemic lockdown and getting cranky.

I can relate because the John Wick movies just don't click for me as much as they do for most people. Maybe it's that they try a little too hard to be cool. Nobody clicked for me because it's more grounded (more realistic, you might say, even though that seems ridiculous to use for a movie like this) and funnier. It doesn't take itself seriously or try to be cool. Basically, it's the same formula as Wick, just tweaked, like how Rocky Road is just chocolate ice cream with a few nuts and marshmallows added in, but the tweaks worked for me, personally.

I also found it refreshing how unabashedly masculine it is, despite that sort of thing seemingly being frowned upon nowadays and without being toxic and sexist, unless you believe that a man defending his family in his home or protecting a harassed girl on a bus counts. Doing that against half a dozen able-bodied thugs at a time might be dumb, but that's what makes it a fantasy, and no one ever argued that masculinity is smart.

By the way, both Nobody and The Comeback Trail have a skit hidden midway through the credits. The first has a skit begging for the sequel, the second is a trailer for an imaginary porn-trash flick, both kinda funny in a weird sort of way.

I had meant to mention the mid-credits scene in my review and forgot. Thanks. If you're going to go back to the theaters or rent it, you might as well not miss any of it (even though the scene isn't very long or essential). There's some speculation, because the movie is from the same writers and producers, that there could be a crossover sequel with John Wick at some point. I'm not sure how they'd get along, though, because one's a dog person and the other's a cat person.

 

[Puck]

One could argue that Nobody badly panders to masculinity. NYTimes mentions it. "
As the bodies mount and Hutch becomes the target of a karaoke-singing Russian mobster (a charismatic Alexey Serebryakov), the movie feebly tries to pardon Hutch’s implacable brutality.

“I’m a good man, a family man,” he informs an adversary. But he’s a counterfeit regular guy in a movie that’s openly contemptuous of such men, a sleeping assassin who’s finally free to scratch a long-suppressed itch. (Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme singing “I’ve Gotta Be Me” during his transition is not exactly subtle.) Now, at last, Hutch is alive; more important, now he’s a man.

I probably would have enjoyed it more if Christopher Lloyd had been the main protagonist. Watching an 80 year old dishing out that chaos and mayhem. Having to suspend disbelief to that degree might have done it more for me to climb onboard. He stole many scenes in the show in my opinion. He was a hoot. I think Kolstad might have missed the right plotline in retrospect but I guess he wasn't going for total comedy.

p.s. but I do get it Osprey. I can see why it works for many. I will give it a second viewing later. I did that for Baby Driver and appreciated it more than 2nd time. But I doubt it overtakes Wick though. I liked the fantasy organized-crime underworld universe there with 'The Hotel' as a centerpiece. I liked the overall composition of the Wick universe. It also has a SteamPunk art deco flair to it like Hotel Artemis.