Film Review - Nobody (2021)

 Nobody stars Bob Odenkirk as Hutch Mansell, a normal non violent non assuming man who loves his family and goes to his job on the bus everyday and misses the garbage but one night his house is invaded by home invaders and he fails to do something about it when he had the chance and this begins to not only eat away at him but awaken a hidden set of skills he once had and now he’s out to find those responsible.

 

Nobody is a whole lot of fun and what really elevates this movie is the casting, Odenkirk (who should play legendary sound designer Ben Burtt in a George Lucas biopic) is a lot of fun as both the action hero and the unassuming family man and the evolution from one to the other, I also enjoyed seeing Michael Ironside in a movie again but the show stealer is Christopher Lloyd as Hutch’s father, he is great great fun and his scenes made me laugh a lot in the cinema.

 

As for the action scenes well they are well directed by Ilya Naishuller who made 2016’s strange but neatly concepted Hardcore Henry and like that film the action scenes and overall pace of the film have a nice brisk feeling to it while also having a proper violent feel to them even if at times some of the stunt work feels a little too rehearsed and padded in its feel (the John Wick sequels also had this problem as well and the same stunt team from those helped make this movie as well.)

 

If I have one complaint about this movie its that at times the film has one too many music video sequences where a popular song plays over a montage of action moments and Hardcore Henry had them as well and like that film only about 1 or 2 of them worked best for me but that was not a big complaint here for me to dent my overall enjoyment of the film.

 

And so that was Nobody and it’s a very enjoyable, very brisk and very fun action comedy elevated by a great cast, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Courier (2021)

The Courier stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Greville Wynne, a manufacturing salesman in 1960s Britain who is recruited by the British and American governments to help a GRU colonel (Merib Nidize) smuggle out Soviet secrets to the West at the height of the Cold War when Russia and America were on the brink of Nuclear Conflict but this is a dangerous game both men play and neither will find it easy to get out of it alive.

 

The Courier has a very strong first two thirds going for it, the performances particularly by Cumberbatch are very solid for the most part and the film has some great production design for 1960s Soviet Russia and there is a real sense of mood and tension in terms of how these 2 men are going to get these top state secrets out of the country without getting caught or killed which is always used as a real threat to both of them and their families as is the then very real threat of Nuclear War between the East and the West at that point in time.

 

But when the film goes into its third act it felt like a lot of that tension and mood dissipated and the film began to slow down to a point where it felt kind of predictable and also I began to feel that this movie as well made and performed as it is might not land as much given how far away we are as a society from that threat of Nuclear Holocaust and the tensions between Russia and America as they existed back then and while it is a very good thing for the world that things are better between the 2 powers this story took place nearly 60 years ago and probably won’t work for a younger audience.

 

And so that was the Courier and its got a great first two thirds but a third act that sees the film fizzle out a little in the end, 2 out of 5.

 

Editorial - Why Nomadland Deserves to Win Best Picture

So another Academy Awards will soon be upon us this year in late April due to the pandemic and while there are 8 nominees for Best Picture there is one in particular I want to write about and why I feel it deserves the Best Picture prize.

 

And that film is not Promising Young Woman as great as it is (and it is a great film) no the movie I feel deserves to win Best Picture is Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland.

 

I saw Nomadland in a cinema not 2 weeks ago and while I didn’t love Frances McDormand as Fern (not that she was bad it was just a performance I felt I had seen her do before and better elsewhere like in 3 Billboards) I did really love what Zhao created with that film from a craftsmanship and storytelling standpoint.

 

And the main reason I feel it deserves to win Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards and most likely will win and that reason is that the movie creates a genuine sense of yearning in 3 major ways:

 

- The first of these is the yearning for a sense of adventure, the pandemic saw many borders across the world close down so as to prevent the spread of the disease and many people the world over who love to travel no matter how big or how small had that sense of adventure taken away from them through no fault of their all though they had to live with it through gritted teeth and some international adventurers still are for the moment.

 

As we get to know Fern in this movie we frequently see her driving her home van across many areas of the United States from deserts to small towns to wind swept coastlines to capital cities for the Christmas period and all of it is beautifully photographed by Zhao and her cinematographer Joshua James Richards and for those who love to travel they will love the beautiful looking landscapes on show in this movie.

 

- The second sense of yearning this movie creates is the yearning for a sense of community which again the pandemic saw shut down as people couldn’t go to their holy churches of either faith or the cinema (which I regard as my holy Church as well as my therapy at the same time) or catch up with friends or see family members or go to a local Bar/Pub and have some drinks in a communal environment or indeed go and watch their favourite sports team do battle in their home or away arena.

 

In Nomadland Fern meets a community of like minded Nomads who bear no malice with their lot in life nor is there any malice or anger directed at them in the film its just this group of people who sure get frustrated with each other at times but they’ve chosen this life and don’t really regret it and the film embraces that mindset in a warm way.

 

- And lastly the third sense of yearning I feel this movie creates is a yearning for the cinema experience, seeing this movie really added to my enjoyment of it as it really highlighted the great visuals the movie has.

 

And as someone who loves more than anything that cinema experience, my Holy Church and Therapy to see that close down for much of last year was a heartbreaking experience especially when the orders came through that cinemas had to close and one of mine put up on their facebook page a video of the lights going down it was enormously saddening to see especially when my movie going and writing about them opened up doors in my life that I never knew of or thought of when I left school in 2003.

 

And I really felt for those who would not get to have that experience of seeing this movie on a big cinema screen instead of seeing it at home on a streaming service which I get completely, things haven’t gotten back to near normal in other parts of the world as opposed to here in Australia where things have returned to a new ish normal for the most part and that was the last yearning I felt this movie created.

 

And for me a Best Picture winner should reflect the year that it won for to some extent and to me Nomadland is that film in terms of reflecting the year that was 2020 a year that saw so much shut down to prevent a global pandemic from getting worse than it already was and people miss what they had for so long I feel Nomadland as a movie and as an experience of watching it for me personally reflected that and its why I feel it deserves Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

 

And so that was my Nomadland deserves the Best Picture Oscar column, I hope you all like it.