Bob Odenkirk is indelibly branded on my cerebral cortex in his Better Call Saul persona - a lovable chancer, a clever wastrel, someone who will never take the dull and honest route when a precarious dishonest one exists. So seeing him in the trailer for Nobody (2021) was a thrill. Could he match his unpredictable hit show alter ego?
He probably could, but the role in Nobody doesn’t call for it. Instead, it requires only a modicum of charm and the ability to simulate action hero levels of violence. It’s such a waste of Odenkirk’s abilities. And even though his hangdog expression, comic asides, and triggering by the theft of his daughter’s ‘kitty-cat bracelet’ hint at reserves of emotion and personality, the simplistic script never requires that we explore them.
It’s basically a superhero movie in disguise. Odenkirk plays a hapless Everyman, Hutch Mansell- the same boring work routine every day, a running joke about failing to put the garbage out on time (but why *is* it always the man’s responsibility?), taking the same bus to and from work. He lives with his patient, occasionally chiding wife Becca, played by Connie Nielsen, and his son and daughter. We know that he longs for more intimacy. Could it be that his gentle Daddyish persona is unsexy to his wife?