BARE BONES: NOBODY (2021)

NOBODY (2021)

Suburban husband and father Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) lives a typical mundane life, till one night two thieves break into his home. Hutch fails to take advantage, when he has an opportunity to foil the thieves, and his manhood comes under question from some of those around him, including his disappointed son (Gage Munroe). Feeling angry about the criticism, a smoldering Hutch goes out one night to find the thieves. Things don’t go as planned and his evening climaxes with a violent outburst against a bunch of drunken thugs on a bus. One of those thugs turns out to be the brother of Russian mobster Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksei Serebryakov), who sets out to find the one responsible for putting his little brother in a coma. But Hutch has a past that make Kuznetsov’s efforts at revenge a lot harder than the Russian gangster anticipates.

Film is directed by Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry) from a script by Derek Kolstad (the John Wick franchise). Despite what could have been a fun premise-a simple suburban dad, so enraged over his questioned masculinity, that he violently takes on a dangerous Russian mobster-making Hutch a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ simply turns this into another routine action flick. Giving Hutch a secret past, making him equally dangerous, ruins the chance to take an amusing concept and run with it. It becomes yet another cookie cutter revenge flick; a B or C level John Wick…and those flicks are far better. On the plus side, Bob Odenkirk is convincing as both an angry and embarrassed suburban dad, and a dangerous man unleashed, though Serebryakov is a very routine villain. There are some good action/fight scenes and it does get quite violent, but it would have been simply far more amusing to see some milquetoast suburbanite go ballistic instead of a man with hidden skills and deadly training. Not a bad action flick for a night on the couch, but not nearly as fun or special as it could have been. Also stars Michael Ironside, Connie Nielsen, RZA and Christopher Lloyd as Hutch’s retired FBI agent dad.

-MonsterZero NJ

BARE BONES: JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 (2017)

John Wick: Chapter 2 is a well-made sequel that returns Keanu Reeves’ “retired” assassin back to action. Here he must honor the marker from Italian crime boss Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) and go to Italy to assassinate D’Antonio’s own rival crime boss of a sister, Gianna (Claudia Gerini). Wick completes the mission but is betrayed by D’Antonio with a contract put on his head for seven million dollars. Now every assassin in the NYC area wants the bounty, including Gianna’s vengeful bodyguard (Common).

Written and directed again by Derek Kolstad and Chad Stahelski, respectively, the duo delivers an action packed and fun sequel to the surprise hit John Wick. The action is slick and rapid fire with a larger body count as now Wick must battle his own kind. The locations are used well between Rome and New York City and Reeves is again solid as the stone-faced assassin, who just wants to retire. It’s an entertaining action flick and a sequel that knows to stick close enough to the formula to not alienate its core audience and yet change’s things just a bit to keep it from being stale. Ian McShane returns as Winston as does John Leguizamo as Aurelio with Lawrence Fishburn appearing as the leader of a guild of homeless street people assassins in NYC.

-MonsterZero NJ

BARE BONES: JOHN WICK and SINBAD: THE FIFTH VOYAGE

JOHN WICK (2014)

John Wick is just simply a good, solid, popcorn action flick with no other intentions than to blow away bad guys and entertain…and it does that just fine. Keanu Reeves is really good as former assassin and man-of-few-words, John Wick. He retired as one of the most lethal killers in the business and after the death of his wife (Bridget Moynahan), has resigned himself to a life of solitude. When a Russian mobster’s arrogant idiot of a son (Alfie Allen) makes the mistake of invading Wick’s home, stealing his Mustang muscle car and killing the puppy that was a final gift from his wife, Wick is back in business and the body count piles up quickly and bloodily.

The action is solid and there is some stylish direction by Chad Stahelski from Derek Kolstad’s script. There are some really well-choreographed shoot-outs and fights and the film does what it sets out to do, nothing more. Sure, there are flaws. The whole John Wick problem would have been solved if one of these gangsters actually took a shot at Wick, instead of rushing in close enough for him to get a hold of their guns, but who cares? Reeves kicks ass and it’s fun to watch him do it. An entertaining and stylish action flick. Also stars, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Willem Dafoe as a fellow assassin/friend of Wick’s and sexy Adrianne Palicki as a female contract killer looking to collect the $2 Million bounty Russian mobster, Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyquist) puts on Wick’s head. Fun and action-packed!

SINBAD: THE FIFTH VOYAGE (2014)

I’m a big fan of the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad films of yesteryear and so was looking forward to this homage from producer/director/co-writer and star, Shahin Sean Solimon. Despite being a one-man production company and having numerous stop-motion animated critters, Solimon’s 90-minute fantasy is a mess of poor SPFX, bad writing, lame directing and awful editing. The barely cohesive story has Sinbad’s beloved Princess Parisa (Danielle Duvale) kidnaped for some sinister purpose by the evil sorcerer, The Deev (Said Faraj). Sinbad and crew set out to find her and after some pointless adventures that barely follow a structured storyline, and equally pointless flashbacks, a plot convenience leads Sinbad to his love for a final showdown with the sinister magician.

There is very little purpose to anything that goes on here. The story creeps along at a dreadfully slow pace and the stop-motion critters are there just because past films have included them, and none really support the story by appearing. The FX are awful, with the meager creature animation being barely adequate and the sets and acting are as bad as the over-used CGI. Despite good intentions, this is a tedious mess with only a few brief moments that actually amuse. I liked that Solimon resorted to old-fashioned stop-motion to keep tradition, but next time build an actual film around it. How Patrick Stewart got involved to narrate is anybody’s guess.