On the surface, having Indonesian director Timo Tjahjanto make his Hollywood feature debut with an installment of an American action-comedy franchise seems to be about as wise a decision as swallowing ground glass.
After all, Tjahjanto is known for such brutal action films as The Night Comes For Us and the self-explanatory Headshot, films that make John Wick look like Paddington. And they are not funny. At all.
In fact, he gives new meaning to the term cruel and unusual.
But Nobody 2, the sequel to the surprise 2021 film starring Bob Odenkirk as a fifty-something, suburban dad who moonlights as a martial arts hero, works as both an action film and as a vehicle for a dark, but playful, sense of humour.
Granted, Tjahjanto literally pulls his punches a bit – there's nothing even approaching the legendary warehouse brawls in The Night Comes for Us – but there's enough of his signature savage choreography to keep the fans satisfied though it's now leavened with humour.
Odenkirk returns as Hutch Mansell, the put-upon dad who's working off a debt owed to a syndicate by doing dangerous errands for them that generally involve sending hordes of crippled and maimed bad guys to the ER to discover just how good their health insurance really is.
But his hectic schedule is starting to get to his long-suffering wife Becca (Connie Mansell) as he's rarely home and his two kids, son Brady (Gage Munroe) and daughter Sammy (Paisley Cadorath), seem to be growing up without a father.
What's the solution? A family vacation, of course. And not just any vacation but one to a small-town waterpark/carnival that Hutch and his adopted brother, Harry (RZA), went as children with their father (Christopher Lloyd).
But it turns out the entire town is just a front for an international crime ring run by the vicious Lendina (an enjoyably over-the-top Sharon Stone) and her enforcers, including Colin Hanks as the corrupt sheriff, Abel, and John Ortiz as Henry, who inherited the theme park from his father.
So, of course, what was supposed to be rest, recreation and relaxation quickly spirals into beatings, stabbings and shootings.
Tjahjanto keeps things moving quickly with no lags. A movie like this shouldn't be more than 90 minutes and this one comes in right at that mark.
But for Tjahjanto fans who might be wondering if their guy has gone soft, they probably shouldn't worry. It's doubtful he's going to be rebooting Dora The Explorer, unless Dora becomes a kung-fu master.
His next projects are the latest installments in the Indonesian horror franchise called May the Devil Take You and the second Jason Statham-led Beekeeper film. Yeah, there's no need to worry. – By CARY DARLING/The Houston Chronicle/Tribune News Service
Summary:
Works as both an action film and as a vehicle for a dark, but playful, sense of humour.
