Nobody (2021)

When a family are terrified by a home invasion one night, and the youngest member of the family loses her favourite kitty bracelet, the man of the house, Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) decides to head out and get some revenge. This leads to him being on a bus at the same time as a group of assholes who are harassing a woman, and Mansell decides that he can take out his rage on this group. This gets him noticed by the wrong people, mainly the very powerful Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksey Serebryakov), and that means that people start to realise his past life was spent being the last person that many people ever saw.

Pretty much sold to people as another John Wick kind of movie, but with "Saul Goodman" in the lead, Nobody will definitely please fans of that series. The fun comes from the fact that Wick reluctantly returned to his killing ways while Mansell is actually keen to let out some rage that has been kept locked away during years of a steady 9-5 grind (a dreary life of routine shown in a montage at the start of the film). The only reason he doesn't want to start back down that path is because he knows how much he's going to enjoy the journey, and he knows how good he is at killing people.

Written by Derek Kolstad, who wrote the first John Wick movie, this is a smart and funny action flick with some impressive violence in the fight scenes. It's hard not to feel a sense of glee as Mansell slides comfortably back into his former habits, and he makes great use of every environment around him to remove the advantage that his opponents usually think they have.

Director Ilya Naishuller is no stranger to this kind of thing, having started his directorial career with an impressive POV short  ("Bad Motherfucker" for Biting Elbows) that would lead to him helming Hardcore Henry. Although I couldn't get on board with that POV gimmick for a whole feature, Naishuller certainly showed that he was happy to revel in gunshots, bone-breaking melee fights, and the kind of forward momentum that should keep most action movie fans pleased.

Odenkirk is superb in the lead role here, believably strong without having bulked up to seem huge. A great actor in pretty much everything I've ever seen him in, it's great to see him have fun in a role that seems so far out of his wheelhouse. I really hope more people see this and become Odenkirk fans. Serebryakov is the standard big baddie, and is just fine in his role, overseeing an army of henchmen who will all likely fail in their attempts to kill Odenkirk's character. RZA has a small role, which he does just fine with, and Christopher Lloyd is a real treat, playing David Mansell (father of Hutch), someone with a similar past. Connie Nielsen is a very understanding wife, Michael Ironside has a small role as a boss/father-in-law, and Colin Salmon has a nice little moment as "The Barber".

All in all, this is everything you could want it to be. The action satisfies, the plotting is good enough to make it all seem plausible (within the movie world), and the sense of humour throughout makes it feel even more suited to Odenkirk having the lead role. Everybody should see Nobody.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Space Dogs (2019)

Here's the blurb for Space Dogs, according to the sources where it is listed online (such as IMDb, MUBI, etc). I'm going to just copy and paste it here because it is the best starting point for giving some idea of the mood of the film, a documentary that considers the use of animals by humans in the quest to make better use of advancing technologies.

"Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. A legend says that she returned to Earth as a ghost and still roams the streets of Moscow alongside her free-drifting descendants."

As you might expect, although I am emphasising it right here and now, this is NOT a documentary that animal lovers will enjoy. I consider myself an animal lover, although I don't have that hard a time when it's fictional harm/death on display, and Space Dogs had a number of scenes that I found uncomfortable to sit through, to say the least.

Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter have opted to give viewers an important perspective on the history of the space race, and the subsequent treatment of animals in the name of science. Animals have been used as pioneers on numerous occasions, and yet nobody can really fully judge how any of those experiences change them. If a chimpanzee is sent into space, and returns unharmed, then how can humans know what thoughts have gone through its mind? Considering the effect that space travel can have on human beings, it's not impossible to think of animals being seriously affected by their time away from their home planet.

As well as trying to ruminate on this kind of thing (perhaps a particular "do sheep dream of electric androids?" kind of sci-fi/sci-fact approach), the documentary shows some stray dogs wandering around Moscow, acting in accordance with their nature and not being treated as anything special by those they wander by. This emphasises the chasm between the mindset of animals and the mindset of people, for the most part, but also serves to remind us that we often bemoan the lack of care given to those who were taken in, and used up, by military forces. Astronauts are travellers, yes, but also akin to soldiers, acting on behalf of their nation to take huge risks as they outdo other nations, heading to an isolated spot upon which they can plant a flag to claim it in the name of whoever sent them on their dangerous mission. They often come back to a warm welcome, and can be ambassadors for their sector. Animals are a different matter though. If they come back at all.

Space Dogs may be about space travel, it may show footage of stray dogs, it may also take a turn in the final reel to discuss turtles, but it's also about all animals, and what we owe them. It's hard to truly calculate what animals have done for us over the centuries, and how we can ever really repay them. But starting to remember their contributions more, and to help any that have been abandoned, would be a good start. A stray dog saw the vastness of space. It's not right that so many of them experience a similar cold emptiness while here on the planet they share with creatures able to provide them with warmth, shelter, and safety.

7/10

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