Nobody Parent Guide

Life in the suburbs isn’t exactly full of excitement. An endless whirl of garbage day, workplace drudgery, and an increasingly unhappy family has left Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) feeling singularly unfulfilled. His opportunity to impress his family and break out of his routine comes during a home invasion, but even then he can’t seem to act.

Hutch wasn’t always spineless, and his shadowy past soon catches up with him, pushing him into fighting a group of violent young men on a bus, including the brother of Yulian Kuznetsov (Aleksey Serebryakov), the leader of the local Russian mob. With the mob baying for his blood, Hutch falls deeper into his old tricks. The mob isn’t going to know what hit them…

I don’t suppose it will shock you if I tell you that this film isn’t all about a great moral lesson. It’s straight up violence-as-entertainment, and if you don’t find that entertaining, you’ll spend the runtime either bored or offended. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Given my fondness for horror and action movies, I’m not easily shocked by violent content so I managed to have a good time while recognizing that family audiences will not. Bob Odenkirk is shockingly good in this highly intimidating, physical role – my familiarity with him is largely with the infamous Saul Goodman of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fame. The other highlight is, of course, the inimitable Christopher Lloyd, who here plays David, Hutch’s elderly father. If you don’t enjoy watching Christopher Lloyd grinning like the Cheshire cat while carrying a large shotgun, you and I just aren’t going to see eye to eye on anything.

Just as importantly, the non-stop action is fast, interesting, and creative, which are all absolute necessities for a movie like this. If I’m permitted one gripe, I’d say that the editing doesn’t do the action justice, and a more dynamic editorial style probably would have amped this up a good deal. But this isn’t a movie that wastes time. Nobody just punches straight through the already-brief 92-minute runtime, which is perfect because there isn’t enough plot to dwell on. This is an action vehicle, and you don’t really need to get hung up on details. You’re here to watch Bob Odenkirk kill a truly surprising number of Russian gangsters; not fret over his wife’s real estate business.

I will be the first to concede that this isn’t family entertainment. There’s the aforementioned violence and prolific profanity – but that’s also just about it. There’s no sexual content or drug use, which isn’t always the case in films like this. If you’re an adult fan of the genre, then this is going to scratch a lot of itches for you. I don’t think I could sum this movie up any better than Chris Lloyd, who says in the film: “Just a bit excessive… but glorious.”