Nobody (USA / Japan, 2021) is the second feature by russian filmmaker Ilya Naishuller, author of the POV stravaganzza called Hardcore Henry (2015). Nobody is no less exorbitant: written by the exalted Derek Kolstad (the John Wick franchise, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier TV series) and starring an extremely volatile Bob Odenkirk, this movie is a highly corrosive parody of right-wing vengeance flicks (Charles Bronson’s Death Wish, Chuck Norris’ The Delta Force, among many other lowbrow classics of the 70s and 80s mainly).

It is also an unforgiving satire of these movies’ target audience: middle-class middle-aged white heterossexual cis resentful men. It’s been quite a while the motion picture industry didn’t present us such high level irony: perhaps, ever since Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997). It goes without saying that the satire, here, doesn’t have the purpose of any kind of political transformation at all, not even inside the film industry. Power structures have long since learned to incorporate a certain amount of dissent in order to maintain themselves more ventilated.

Nevertheless, Nobody‘s fine satire is still an interesting experience for the viewer (the target audience probably won’t get it). There are at least two great cinematic moments in the movie. The first is in the introduction to the main character, when we take a peek at his daily routine: Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) is a typical representative of the petty-bourgeoisie, gliding over family, work and life, completely lost in the alienation and crumbling of the individual transformed into mass that characterize modern societies. He is the “man without qualities” in Robert Musil’s eponymous novel (1930).

On a given morning, we see him arrive at the office where we know he has been working for many long years. The camera that accompanies him passes then in front of a wall where there are hanging portraits of all the “employees of the month”, like trophies, a common display in many companies. But we see no portrait of Mr. Mansell. It is a pure visual way of telling a story, following the most classic example of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), when we are introducted to James Stewart’s character.

The other memorable moment takes place also in the first act, when some Hutch’s neighbor, a petty male specimen who drives a classic white Dodge Challenger (the same as seen on Vanishing Point) and has an evident psychoanalytic problem of compensation, tries to emasculate Mr. Mansell for not reacting to a couple of burglars who had just tresspassed his home the night before. This is the highest moment of Nobody, mercilessly mocking the average male citizen that suffers from Charles Bronson complex.

We wouldn’t normally expect or even believe that Bob Odenkirk’s dad bod would be capable of James Bond’s stunts, and here lies the fine humor of Derek Kolstad: it is a ficcional story, which we follow through exclusively thanks to our capacity for suspension of disbelief. Hutch Mansell can do almost literally anything, as John Wick, Charles Bronson or Chuck Norris can. But you, my sad friend, can’t. Because you are not them. Because they simply don’t exist, they can’t exist, at least not in this Universe, with its deterrent laws of physics.

All this ficcional characters are as credible as the demi-god Achilles, the Superman from Krypton or the chivalric Amadís de Gaula. They bring us a lot of fun, that’s right. But it would be best if we didn’t take them more seriously than our children’s plays. Anyway, Naishuller’s new feature is not the post-modern Don Quixote de La Mancha, but cracks a few good jokes along the way.