Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Nobody 2
Four years after the events ofNobody,Bob Odenkirk’s weary, quietly lethal everyman, Hutch Mansell, is still paying off that little incident with the Russian mob — $30 million worth of “little incident,” to be exact. He’s working non-stop as a hitman, but his marriage to Becca (Connie Nielsen) is running on calendar reminders, and his kids, Sammy (PaisleyCadorath) and Brady (GageMunroe), barely see him.
So, naturally, the plan inNobody 2is a simple one: take the family on a sunny little getaway to the tourist trap town of Plummerville, eat bad theme park food, hit up the arcade, and — under no circumstances — start a fight. Naturally, that lasts about 10 minutes. Once they roll into the delightfully tacky tourist destination with his father, David (ChristopherLloyd), Hutch can’t help but stumble into trouble. Only this time, it’s bigger, messier, and way more out in the open. Award-winning Indonesian filmmakerTimoTjahjantotakes the sequel’s family vacation vibe and cranks it into an action free-for-all, where every scene is either hilariously awkward or jaw-droppingly brutal.
And at the center of it all?A duck boat fight that might be the most unhinged action sequence you’ll see all year, and the best way to close out summer. It’s clever, chaotic, and laugh-out-loud funny. But it alsoleaves our endearing hero permanently maimed, as his pinky finger is sliced off.During a Collider Signature interview with Odenkirkin support of the film, the 62-year-old admits it was a choice that Tjahanto made, building on the “Jackie Chanof it all.”
What Happens to Hutch During the Duck Boat Scene Can’t Be Undone
Across the film’s 90 minutes, the fights come fast and gritty.Hutch doesn’t just trade blows with the bad guys— he scrambles, slips, and bludgeons his way through at least a dozen separate brawls in everything from cramped hotel elevators to the sunbaked midway of Plummerville. But it’s theduck boat sequence where he fights dirty cops and hired muscle that’s the real centerpieceofNobody 2.
As a mash-up of slapstick gags and bone-crunching stunts that will have you at the literal edge of your seat after the first movie’s messy bus fight scene, the fight sequence heretakes a jarring turn when Hutch’s run-in finds one of the attackers slicing off his pinky finger.With the camera slowing down to show us how it happens, it zooms in on the bloody stump and the slightly protruding bone, only to see Hutch freaking out and trying to chase it down after it falls into the lake. Unfortunately, he never finds it.
“That would be Timo Tjahanto.That’s just Timo building on the Jackie Chan of it all. The fish eating the fingers,” he tells Collider. “I’m going to always say it is my nod to Jackie Chan.I love Jackie’s movies. I especially love the early ones that I know well, likePolice Story. And so that was my chance to do some clever fighting that hopefully makes you smile. It is tonally a little different fromNobody, and it’s totally different from much of the other fights inNobody 2, which tend to be darker, grislier, or more impactful, but it has jokes in it.”
Odenkirk adds how it also has a “funny kind of build the world around it with the old couple” just sitting back and listening to the tour guide while the fight is breaking out in the back. “It’s very Jackie, I hope, and so the fact that we got to do it, the fact that it got in the movie, the fact that it feels right in the movie… it thrills me.”
How That Permanent Maiming Impacts Hutch for a Potential ‘Nobody 3’
With the accident and lost finger acting as a reminder of Hutch’s connection to this world, Odenkirk is unsure how it would resonate if there were a third movie. “We’ll have to see how it plays for people.I think if there are further stories, and I think there are stories to tell with this core theme — I’m not sure. We’ll see how people respond to that. I think there’s maybe a whole other film, which is to say, that is of the tone of the duck boat beginning to end. No blood, no guns, and cleverness and jokes within the fights.”
Odenkirk admits he went into this film and the original “very aware” of how he needed to be “hardcore” in his training and preparation. “I need to show the actual community that I don’t treat that —I’m not just being a dilettante and taking their genre that they loveand going, ‘See, I could do it. It’s easy.’ Or taking advantage of their allegiance to this art form that they love and saying, ‘I’ll take your money.’ I wanted them to see that I meant to play it as hard and serious as I could, and so inthe second film is where I felt that maybe I’ve earned enough credit to show a lighter side to the fighting.”
That’s the magic trick of not just Odenkirk’s performance, butNobody 2: the violence is still vicious, but the beats in between are ridiculous in the best way. The missing finger becomes less of a grim injury andmore of a running gag that makes Hutch feel human.
In ‘Nobody 2,’ Becca’s Ready for Action — and Hints She’s Been Hiding a Dangerous Past
While Hutch is out there collecting scars,Connie Nielsen’s Becca is stepping into the action herself.In the first film, she’s the strong but silent type, sidelined a bit. But in the sequel, Odenkirk says, she gets to channel some of that energy Hutch fell for in the first place. “In the first film, the wife is very victimized by the scenario around her. She is strong-willed, but she’s victimized by Hutch’s erratic behavior, and yet she shows an inner strength, and she shows acceptance that makes you think, ‘Hmm, we know. So who is she?’” he says.
Odenkirk adds it’s in the film’s final moments, during theHome Alone-inspired theme park action sequence, that we wonder more about her. “That last moment in the first film where she goes, ‘Does it have a basement?’ It’s got a smile to it. It’s her. It’s her winking that she’s okay with Hutch’s secondary life — and so what does that tell me about her?” he says. “That tells me she’s probably not. If not everything we think she is, she’s something else. She’s more than that, and so I really wanted in the second film to see her act on that, to show in the first film, Hutch shows a side of himself that she hasn’t seen in 20 years. And in the second film,she sort of goes to him and remembers who I was when we met.”
There’s even a hint thatBecca’s got her own dangerous history — one Odenkirk swears is already written down somewhere. “We’ve got those stories. We have those stories. We have a backstory for her that is different from Hutch’s, but in sort of thematic ways, not different at all.”
