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When we look back at the action movies of the last decade or two, which ones stand out as the very best of the bunch?
For us, it would have be Mad Max: Fury Road, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Raid: Redemption, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Skyfall and John Wick: Chapter 2.
And now, unquestionably amongst that mix, is Nobody.
Clip via Universal Ireland
Initially released in cinemas in March 2021 (so riiiiiiiight as people were starting to feel they should be avoiding the cinema), it did okay-but-not-great box office ($56 million worldwide on a $16 million production budget), but it did strike a chord with critics, resulting in an impressive 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Most of that comes down to two things:
(1) Bob Odenkirk is spectacular in the lead role, playing a retired government assassin who has spent one too many days being ground down by annoying neighbours and local criminals, before exploding into an act of violence that suddenly puts him and his wife and children in the crosshairs of a vengeful drug lord.
And (2) the action scenes are so incredibly cathartic. Everyone talked up the bus action scene in Shang-Chi last year – and deservedly so – but the bus-based fight in Nobody wins that head-to-head, no questions asked. And that is before the final third of the movie, which can only be described as an incredibly homicidal version of Home Alone.
The movie is written by Derek Kolstad (the creator of the John Wick series) and produced by David Leitch (director of Atomic Blonde and Hobbs & Shaw), so it arrives from the minds of some of the great modern action movies.
All of these elements combined make it a contender for one of the Greatest Friday Night Movies of All Time, which is also why it ended up on JOE’s Top Ten Movies of 2021 list.
Nobody is available to watch with your NOW Cinema Membership from today (Friday, 21 January), and you can check out our chat with Bob Odenkirk himself about the movie right here”
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