Film / Nobody

"...I left it behind to start a family.
I might have, uh...overcorrected."

"I used to be what they call an 'Auditor' - the last guy anyone wants to see at their door, because it meant you didn't have long to live."

— Hutch Mansell

Nobody is a 2021 black comedy action thriller film directed by Ilya Naishuller (Hardcore Henry), written by Derek Kolstad (John Wick) and starring Bob Odenkirk.

Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk) is an underestimated and overlooked family man, husband and father of two. When a pair of thieves break into his suburban home one night, Hutch declines to defend himself or his family, hoping to avoid violence. This decision is met with disappointment from his son Blake (Gage Munroe) and estrangement from his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen).

However, the incident sparks a long-simmering rage in Hutch, propelling him on a brutal path that reveals a set of mysteriously lethal skills behind the insignificance at his surface and attracts dangerous enemies in very high places that set their sights on him and his family. Little do they know just how far he's willing to go...

Originally scheduled for an August 2020 wide release by Universal Pictures, the film was pushed back to March 26th, 2021 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

See the official Red Band trailer here.

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Tropes in this film include:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Much of the first act is action-free drama, establishing our hero — but a scene where Hutch nearly kills a desperate criminal only doing it to take care of his family to satisfy his building urge to kill stands out. Later, when the film kicks into overdrive, Hutch later monologues about his past and his present — namely, what made him retire: letting a marked man go after hearing him beg for his life, and checking on him a year later. The man kept his promise to go clean and started a family — awakening a desire to be normal in Hutch.
• The Adventure Continues: Before the credits roll, we se Hutch and Becca shopping for a new home when their realtor gets a call... for Hutch, prompting him to ask if the home has a basement. In the mid-credits stinger, Hutch's father and brother are shown driving somewhere in an RV. When his dad asks why they couldn't just fly, his brother points at their luggage. Lots and lots of guns.
• Answer Cut: One such cut incorporating the main title card concludes the opening scene.
  Interrogator: Who the fuck are you?
  Hutch: Me? I'm...
  NOBODY
• Anti-Hero: Hutch is a sadist with a violent past looking for any excuse to unleash his suppressed killer instinct. But his care for his family is no mundane facade, and he patiently chooses acceptable targets to be the victims of his bloodlust.
• Artistic License – Chemistry: 1500 degrees F will not automatically make bones just disappear into ashes since cremation alone is insufficient for fully destroying skeletal bones. The process needs a special grinding machine, which would raise more suspicion when trying to use it.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety:
  • After the home invasion, Charlie offers Hutch a gun by pointing it in his face. This is notably after they are both established as former members of the military. In addition, Charlie is quick to note that the safety is on, before quickly realizing that it is not (which sharp-eyed viewers could spot right away).
  • In the bus brawl, Hutch intentionally pulls a very risky move by emptying his revolver and leaving it on the floor before his melee. Sure enough, one of the thugs eventually tries to reload it to get the upper hand and Hutch narrowly stops him with a pole to the head.
• Assassin Outclassin': David is given a vague warning that he may be in danger. When two thugs come to execute him, he quickly and casually grabs one hitman's gun in a manner where he jams the hammer and then guns them both down with a concealed shotgun.
• Asshole Victim: Technically, Teddy hadn't actually done anything yet to earn the brutal beating that left him brain-dead and actually seemed like The Quiet One of his band of rowdy mob goons. Despite this, it's made clear that Teddy was an asshole who not even Yulian really liked all that much and it is heavily implied the girl on the bus would have been raped.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: The reason why Hutch let the robbers go at the beginning of the movie was because he noticed that their revolver had no bullets and hadn't been fired for a while, so he was never in any real danger. Later, he's also able to track down the robbers by spotting one of their tattoos and asking around the tattoo parlors.
• Awful Wedded Life: Hutch and Becca sleep with a wall of pillows between them. After the bus fight, Hutch tells Becca he misses her, that they haven't kissed in ages, they haven't had sex in months, they haven't made love in years...
  Hutch: I miss you. Do you remember who we used to be? I do.
• Ax-Crazy: When asked by gangsters if Yulian can be trusted with their money, he immediately mutilates a gangster nearby just to show that he's not just some club owner.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Hutch, David, and Harry in the climactic fight.
• Badass Driver: Hutch turns out to be able to drive a car while under heavy gunfire.
• Badass Family: Hutch, his father, and his brother are all dangerous people. Even his son shows some signs of badassery when he takes down one of the robbers at the beginning of the film.
  Hutch: You brought a lot of shotgun.
  Dave: You brought a lot of Russians!
• Bathos: When Hutch confronts the couple that robbed his house, he throws the man onto the floor and brandishes a gun while yelling "GIVE ME THE GODDAMN KITTY CAT BRACELET, MOTHERFUCKER!" (Trust us, It Makes Sense in Context.)
• Battle Couple: After the bus fight, Becca patches Hutch up with the easy skill of a combat medic with Hutch commenting "Just like old times, huh?", indicating they served together.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Becca and Blake wish that Hutch could be a more stereotypical manly man. They get to see what he's truly capable of when Yulian's gang assault their house and are horrified at the results.
• Being Evil Sucks: Hutch correctly assumes that Yulian actually hates his job as the treasurer of the mob because of all the stress that comes with the position. When he tries to negotiate with him after torching the Obshak he even encourages him to simply cut his losses and retire.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: The film initially depicts Hutch as a quiet suburbanite before showing that he's intimately familiar with violence.
• Beware the Silly Ones: When we first see Yulian, he's dressed colorfully and goofily singing onstage at a nightclub, but when one of his partners' questions if he has what it takes to protect their money, Yulian proceeds to brutally kill another guy in the nightclub who looked at him funny.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Curiously, the movie more or less makes its actual Big Bad into this. It's pointed out a few times that Yulian's grudge with Hutch is technically not as bad as it could be ^note Teddy is left comatose and breathing through a straw, but still 'alive' and with the faint possibility of recovery, and it's hinted a few times that Yulian doesn't exactly like him on a personal level anyway, pretty much everybody who understands who Hutch is tries to tell him messing with him really isn't a good idea in any way, and he's in over his head, and Hutch himself even points out that they don't need to have a climatic fight to settle things between them after easily dismantling his Obtshak protection detail, and when Yulian insists on trying to kill Hutch anyway he merely ends up leading his remaining forces straight into Hutch's prepared trap and them getting killed en masse. Underscoring this is Hutch being visibly eager for Yuian to attack him anyway, treating him more as an excuse to vent his violent urges than a legitimate threat.
• Big Brother Instinct: Yulian doesn't really like Teddy, but he's still going to kill Hutch for messing with his little brother.
• Bittersweet Ending: Sure Hutch has disposed of a Russian gangster and his mooks looking for revenge, but in the process he also burnt down The Mafiya's collective nest egg, which the other gangsters certainly would not be happy about. And not to mention that having exposed his secret identity, Hutch's family life would never be the same again. The film's ending implied that Hutch pulled some strings in the government to get out of the murder charges, but as repayment, he's apparently back in "the game". Though in the latter case, it's implied that such an outcome works in Hutch's favor since the events of the movie revitalized his interest.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Hutch is a former government assassin with a high body count to his name, who at the very least is patient enough to reserve his killer instinct for those who absolutely deserve it. Yulian on the other hand, is an Ax-Crazy crime lord who doesn't care much for his own brother and mostly targets Hutch and his family out of hurt pride.
• Black Comedy: Plays a lot with action movie tropes, especially surrounding John Wick, but ramps up the violence and Dissonant Serenity. In one example, Hutch politely dismisses the driver of a bus before fighting a bunch of drunk hooligans; both sides end up bleeding really badly, but Hutch is knocked out the window. As the guys on the bus are slow to get back up, Hutch shakes himself awake, hobbles over to the door and goes back inside for round two.
• Blood Knight: Hutch comes to the realization that he enjoyed his life as an "auditor" and that the misery of suburbia is all the worse because he has no outlet for his violent urges. Once he crosses paths with Teddy and, later, Yulian, he's ecstatic at the opportunity to escalate every encounter as violently as possible. He gets it from his father, a former door-kicking FBI agent who's bored out of his skull in retirement.
  David: Just a bit excessive, but glorious.
• Boisterous Weakling: Charlie acts like a tough guy, even forcing Hutch to accept a gun because he thinks Hutch is a wimp incapable of defending his family. This later gets stripped away, with Charlie being revealed as a Manchild who only survives thanks to nepotism and can be taken down with a single punch.
• Book Ends: The first and penultimate scenes are of Hutch in the interrogation room, soundtracked by "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood".
• Boredom Montage: The film opens with one, quick-cutting through different parts of Hutch's day-to-day life to show how humdrum his existence is.
• Bulletproof Human Shield: Hutch uses a Russian mook this way during the warehouse fight.
• Catchphrase: Of sorts; Hutch routinely responds to people asking who he is with a passive "Me? I'm nobody."
• Chairman of the Brawl: Yulian grabs a chair from the hospital waiting room and hurls it at a bedridden goon who was guarding Teddy. When the man explains they were attacked by just one man, Yulian grabs the chair and repeatedly slams it on his legs.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: When Hutch is wounded and pinned down by Yulian's goons, Harry arrives to provide cover fire and joins in the final battle despite having previously stated he wasn't going to come out of hiding to save Hutch.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • A literal example: after the home invasion, Hutch is given a handgun by Charlie, his brother-in-law. Reluctant to use it, he instead hides it in an empty food carton in the refrigerator. At the climax of the film, Hutch remembers where he placed the gun and puts it to good use against the Russian mobsters.
  • Emphasis is placed on Hutch's Metro Card while showing the monotony of his life, and he drops it while collecting his father's old FBI badge and gun. After beating up the thugs on the bus, he drops it again and the Russians use it to ID him.
  • One of the ladies at Hutch's office is shown bumping the ceiling tiles looking for a rat. After the final fight, Hutch finds out it's actually a little kitten, and takes it in, probably because his daughter talked about wanting a cat.
  • The Claymore mine that Hutch sneaks into the The Mafiya night club and uses as his leverage to chat with Yulian at a table. It factors into the finale: Hutch attaches it to a makeshift ballistic shield he fashioned, charges at Yulani and detonates the mine, killing Yulani and protecting Hutch from the blast.
• Combat Pragmatist: The bus brawl and home invasion scenes are the purest examples of Hutch using his environment to his advantage, his deadly skills acquired over the years and creative use of literally anything as a weapon.
  • The brawl on the bus is kicked off by Hutch using a hard glass bottle against his attackers, their own knives end up in their bodies, his wristwatch becomes a handy makeshift brass knuckle, the brake cable and standing poles inside the bus become handy lassoes and clubs, and a lady’s purse is used to nearly hang one of the punks to death.
  • The home invasion really shows us Hutch's pragmatism — turning out all the lights in his home so the assault team would have to navigate in the dark, ambushing them one by one, using a baseball bat to knock them down and then breaking it so it becomes a pair of deadly stakes, taking a kitchen knife to quietly kill two more, using the mercenaries' firearms against them, and throwing scalding hot water from a tea kettle into one poor mook's face.
• Cool Car: When leaving his house for the final battle, Hutch first remote-unlocks his own mundane SUV, but instead decides to steal the 1972 Dodge Challenger about which his neighbor bragged earlier.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: The last straw for Hutch is when he finds out that the burglars who invaded his house also stole his daughter's bracelet, which leads to him hunting them down, which starts a chain of events that leads to tragedy and destruction. Eventually, long after these events have happened, he realizes that his daughter actually just dropped her bracelet under the couch. By that time, though, he's so fired up from getting "back in the game", he's more amused at the discovery than angry.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: On the way out of the house after Yulian's invasion, Hutch shields his daughter's eyes, while his wife and son have to witness the full horror of what he's done.
• Crazy-Prepared: Hutch installed an automatic steel door in the entrance to his basement, turning it into a makeshift panic room.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Just like in Hardcore Henry, Ilya Naishuller is an unfortunate mook, who this time barely survives our hero's wrath and is interrogated.
  • The director's wife Darya Charusha also appears briefly, playing Yulian's henchwoman.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: One poor guy gets beaten up, tangled up in a barbed wire trap, and then launched out a window.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: The thugs on the bus get in just enough hits — especially in the first half of the fight — to make the audience think Hutch and his rusty skills might not make it through. Unfortunately for them, once Hutch gets his second wind after going through the window, it's all over for them.
• Daddy's Girl: Sammy, Hutch's daughter, is the only member of the family who continues to adore him.
• Dead Sparks: Hutch and Becca as they even have a pillow barrier between them in bed. Their dying relationship is mentioned when he comments that they "haven't had sex in months, haven't made love in years". Hutch becoming a badass again reignites those sparks.
• Deadly Euphemism: Hutch was an "Auditor" for the US government. His job was to track down troublemakers in the various "three-letter agencies" and eliminate them.
• Determinator: Hutch's response to being thrown out of a bus window during a fight? Go right back inside for more, in spite of how obviously bruised and tired he is.
• The Dreaded: Everyone who learns what Hutch used to do quickly shits their pants. The movie never even tries to pretend that the villains pose a threat to him; the tension is instead on whether he'll be able to contain his violent side.
  • One veteran at a tattoo parlor recognizes Hutch's tattoos and immediately bolts for a heavily protected safe room.
  • The hacker who digs up Hutch's past at Yulian's orders takes one look at his files and immediately packs up her stuff to leave, only stopping long enough to literally throw the files at Yulian's feet and say he doesn't need to pay her. For Yulian's part, he looks at the files scattered at his feet and just utters, "Fuck me."
  • The two officers interrogating him have their smirks wiped off when his connection gives them a call.
• Dreadful Musician: Yulian loves to sing and dance in front of his adoring nightclub patrons. However, he's awful at both, and people cheer and clap because he could kill anyone who doesn't.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Yulian defends his choice of having a black Russian as his second-in-command. His brother also has a black man in his entourage.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Yulian’s introduction is an extremely efficient one. He berates his driver for missing his club and demands an immediate U-turn, which nearly hits another car; he's arrogant and demanding. After he gets out of his car, he crosses the street without looking as cars swerve or brake hard to avoid him; he's fearless. He then enters his club where it's shown he's a popular figure, shaking hands, greeting guests, taking a shot, and doing a bump of cocaine before heading up on stage to sing and dance; he likes to have fun. Then he heads upstairs to talk to the Russian Mafiya, and when one tells him the singing and dancing is off-putting to some of them, he smashes his glass, then proceeds to slash a man's face and slit his throat because he looked at Yulian funny. Said man turns out to be a millionaire boss, not some random thug, to Yulian's visible surprise; he's impulsive and irrationally violent for the slightest offense, but he doesn’t think things through.
  • Hutch is shown having settled deeply into the routine of the seemingly normal, quiet life of a nondescript family man, but his expressions imply something is deeply irritating him. His routine is shattered by a burglary, but when he has a chance to beat one of the burglars into a bloody pulp, he stops himself despite clearly being able to. Turns out, he's a former ruthless killer, but one with a heart, who is growing tired of the "normal" life he retired into and is practically chomping at the bit to get back into action, even if he initially refuses to admit it to himself.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Yulian shows off his brutality in his intro scene but moments later is brought to tears upon seeing his younger brother in his condition after the bus brawl. Downplayed, however, in that it is heavily implied that Yulian doesn't even care about his brother's condition, and is more affected by his belief that the attack was an attempt to get at him.
  • The pair of robbers who robbed Hutch are actually a couple, and have a sick baby.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Hutch quickly realized that the people robbing his home only had an old gun that hadn't been fired in ages that was unloaded, so even though he wanted a bit of the old ultraviolence, he couldn't do it. After all, it was just a couple of bucks. Later when he tracks them down he decides to leave them when he discovers that there baby is sick.
  Harry on the Radio: Well, now I know why you didn't do what you didn't do.
  • Hutch lampshades the fact that even in the ultra violent world he and Yulian are part of, it is considered unacceptable to attack someone in their home while their family is present.
  • Hutch really, really wants an outlet for all his pent-up rage, but refuses to beat up anyone unless they deserve it, even if they're being insulting and aggressive to his face. He only truly lets loose once he can justify it, such as protecting a girl from potential rapists.
• Familial Foe: As part of Yulian's vendetta against Hutch, he sends goons to attack Hutch's house while his wife and kids are there (although the goons don't specifically try to hurt his wife and kids on screen) and to kill or kidnap Hutch's father. In the climax, Hutch's father and brother help take out Yulian and his goons.
• Foreshadowing: Very early, a montage is used to establish how mundane and repetitive Hutch's daily routine is. The only slightly odd part is that each morning, he spends the time waiting for the bus doing pull-ups on the side of the bus stop. This makes a lot more sense once it's shown that he's actually an incredibly capable hitman, and is presumably keeping himself in fighting condition out of habit.
  • Also, when Hutch calls his father David at the retirement home to warn him of possible danger, David just... smiles. This implies that he's also a Retired Badass.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: It's possible, in a select few scenes, to spot that David has a similar card tattoo to the one Hutch has, possibly the same one, on his wrist.
• Friendly Sniper: Harry, Hutch's brother snipes several villains while saying hi to Hutch.
• Gratuitous Russian: Largely averted, as the mobsters are played by actual Russian actors, and they speak Russian in rather appropriate circumstances.
• Halfway Plot Switch: At first, it seems like the plot will center around Hutch tracking down the home invaders and recovering his daughter’s bracelet. However, he finds them very quickly, and the real plot kicks off when Hutch gets in a fight with the punks on the bus purely by coincidence.
• Happily Adopted: Considering an old family photo and how much they confide and fight for each other, Harry is this to Hutch and David.
• Heel–Face Turn: The event that made Hutch give up his previous lifestyle was deciding to let an embezzler live with the promise he would leave it behind. He checked up on the guy a year later and found him with a wife and two step kids, and that made him angry that doing so was actually possible.
• Here We Go Again!: At the end, Hutch and Becca are checking out a new home when the real estate agent gets a call for Hutch from an unknown number. Hutch answers with indistinct responses, and then both he and Becca ask the agent if the house has a basement.
• Hero of Another Story: Hutch's brother is in hiding after some undisclosed escapades of his own, to the point where he only communicates with Hutch through a secure radio set and is reluctant to come out of the shadows to help fight the Russians.
• Hidden Depths: Despite how unhappy her marriage to Hutch may seem in the first act, Becca shows a lot of sympathy and understanding once he gets back into his old life despite initially being pained by this. She is also revealed to be a successful businessperson in one early scene.
• Homage: Hutch recounts a story of working as a government assassin and says he was carrying a Walther PPK before correcting himself and saying that it was an H&K USP. The Walther PPK is the signature gun of that other government assassin, James Bond.
• "Home Alone" Antics: Hutch booby traps his (newly bought) construction company in preparation for the final battle.
• Home Field Advantage: Hutch buys out his father in law's business so he can set up a myriad death traps for when the Russians come after him.
• How We Got Here: The movie opens with Hutch in a police interrogation room, bloodied and bruised, producing a kitten from his jacket and feeding it tuna before the interrogators can start asking questions about who he is. It then jumps back to the past and works its way through until that moment becomes the chronological present at the end of the film.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Taken to the logical extreme during the car chase scene. There are dozens of assault rifles and machine pistols firing at the car in which Hutch is driving and the vehicle itself is riddled with bullets from every possible direction... but Hutch is unscratched.
• Impersonating an Officer: When Hutch sets off to find his daughter's kitty-cat bracelet, he borrows his father's old FBI credentials. It passes muster with most people until one thug points out that particular style of card is 20 years out of date. Luckily for Hutch, it's not his only play.
• Instant Drama, Just Add Tracheotomy: After crushing Teddy's throat, Hutch apparently decides he doesn't actually want him dead. He uses a knife and discarded soda straw to give Teddy a tracheotomy which keeps him alive until the ambulance arrives. Unfortunately, between this and the rest of the beating he took, Teddy is left comatose with irreversible brain damage.
• Invulnerable Knuckles: Hutch repeatedly punches a brick wall in rage. The only result is the skin on his knuckles getting scuffed.
• James Bondage: A couple gunmen manage to knock out and cuff Hutch. This lasts for about as long as it takes him to wake back up.
• Justified Criminal: Hutch decides to spare the robbers after realizing that they are not only young and scared, but were also using an empty gun. When he does tracks them down, he also finds out that they were raising a sick infant.
• Just One Man: When Yulian is told a single man beat Teddy and his entire entourage, he proceeds to beat the shit out of the goon because he doesn't buy that one man could cause that much damage.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Despite their differences, Yulian is very protective of his younger brother. Hutch didn't kill Teddy, but considering the brain damage he has, Yulian acts like he's dead anyway.
• Left for Dead: After the goons raiding Hutch's house overpower him and drag him away, they leave behind at least one very badly wounded but still living mobster.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Though Becca patches Hutch up after his bus fight, it's apparent he hasn't explained the full extent of the situation before the lasagna dinner, nor is she aware of the full extent of the wetwork he used to do for the alphabet agencies.
• A MacGuffin Full of Money: The Obshak is the Russian mafia's equivalent of the 401k, a massive sum of cash that is constantly on the move and under guard by one member or another. Subverted in that while Yulian thinks Hutch is after the Obshak, Hutch couldn't care less and proceeds to burn the entire fortune just to make a point.
• Made of Iron: Hutch takes several injuries, including a stab wound and a gunshot wound, over the course of the movie and barely slows down.
• The Mafiya: Yulian. His role is guarding and overseeing the treasury of the Bratva families.
• Mask of Sanity: Hutch has done some really bad things in the past and doesn't seem to have any regrets for any of it. He only retired to a suburban life so he could have some peace, but he clearly misses his old life, and pretending to be a mild-mannered husband and father is only serving to piss him off even further.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • When the veteran in the tattoo parlor retreats into a safe room and completely locks it down, the two thugs who were ready to jump Hutch quickly back off and the artist quickly asks what Hutch wants.
  • The five hooligans on the bus when they see Hutch, who had just been thrown out the window and already suffered a lot of damage, climb back into the bus and looks fully prepared to continue kicking their asses.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • "Short story long..."
  • "It is what it is."/"It was what it was."
• Mid-Life Crisis Car: Hutch is about to drive off in one of his attacker's sensible cars but at the last minute gives into temptation and steals his neighbor's vintage muscle car.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • Subverted with the home invaders in the beginning of the movie; they were two-bit crooks, and Hutch resisted fighting back because he knew they were harmless. He does get riled up at the audacity of finding that his daughter's bracelet was taken and tracks them down, but despite threatening them, he leaves them alone after seeing that they are a couple with a physically ill baby.
  • When Hutch starts asking questions in a tattoo parlor, the employees do not like it and decide to beat him up and steal his money. It is then subverted because one of the thugs is a veteran and recognizes a tattoo on Hutch's wrist. This is enough for him to back down, tell Hutch "Thank you for your service", and hightail it to the back room where he starts closing every bolt and lock the door has. The other thugs are smart enough to realize that they are about to fall into this trope, put down their weapons, and give Hutch the information he is looking for.
  • Played straight with the gang on the bus. They initially laugh at the idea of Hutch threatening them, but he quickly shows just how capable he is.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Upon tracking down the robbers who broke into his house, Hutch brutally pistol-whips one of them for the bracelet they stole and is likely ready to murder them until he discovers that they're raising an infant who needs a breathing mask. A mix of both guilt and frustration that he can't take his anger out on them leads him to run outside and punch a wall.
• Never Found the Body: Hutch tells the dead and dying mooks in his house that bone turns to ash at 1500 degrees^note Celsius. Crematorium ovens burn at around this temperature and that his basement is designed to burn at twice that temperature to ensure that there’s nothing left of them to find among the wreckage.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Based on The Barber’s dialogue (“Your creditor has learned of your resurrection”), it seems as though Hutch used to work for Yulian and owes him a debt. In the film, however, the two don't know each other and Yulian only goes after Hutch because of what Hutch did to Yulian’s brother.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: Placing a Claymore mine in front of a ballistic shield wouldn't offer 100% protection from a mine explosion point-blank range. Hutch doesn't even blow out his ear drums.
• Noodle Incident: Harry, Hutch's brother, is in hiding, but the film doesn't go into why.
• Not Quite Dead: After the goons raiding Hutch's house overpower him and drag him away, they leave behind at least one very badly wounded but still living mobster.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: David Mansell, Hutch's elderly father, lives in a nursing home while mostly watching cowboy movies. He used to be an FBI agent and is still very much capable of killing men a quarter his age.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Hutch's father-in-law acts friendly to him but there is a sense that they can't quite connect. Meanwhile, Hutch's brother-in-law gives him a gun for protection but does so in a swaggering, Condescending Compassion way after first taunting him with the weapon.
• Offhand Backhand: Harry swings a sniper rifle over his shoulder and shoots a mook behind him in the head while at the same time using the recoil to bash a mook in front of him.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When the Desert Storm veteran in the final tattoo parlor recognizes the ink on Hutch's wrist, he immediately reacts in fear and makes himself scarce.
  • After Hutch is thrown out of the bus and leaving the goons wounded and bleeding in various states, him getting back on the bus for round two has them all spooked and unhappy.
  • Yulian's hacker receives Hutch's massively redacted military records and is so freaked out that she instantly packs up her gear, throws the records at Yulian and tells him that she is quitting and does not want to be paid for the job.
• Old Soldier: Hutch's father is in a nursing home, but it's shown that he is a former FBI agent. Like Hutch, he's not as genial and doddering as you are led to believe.
• One-Hit Polykill: Harry kills 3 mooks with one shot. Justified as he was using a sniper rifle at close range and even lampshaded as his father David doesn't believe he pulled this off.
• One Last Job: Yulian apparently wants to get out of the mafia life but can't until his turn guarding the Obshak is done.
• One-Man Army: Once he gets back in the groove, Hutch starts ripping through Yulian's organization with little trouble. His brother and father show similar aptitudes in annihilating mooks by the dozens.
• The Oner: Yulian's introduction follows him from the street into his nightclub and through the crowd until he steps onto the stage.
• Only Sane Man: Once it becomes clear how horribly outclassed he and his friends are, Teddy is the only one with the presence of mind to go for the gun and bullets Hutch dropped just before the fight. It doesn't work and ends with him getting brain damage, but it's still the only shot any of them has at taking him down.
• Overly Long Gag: At a tattoo parlor, a thug raring to fight Hutch quickly changes his tune when he recognizes a tattoo on Hutch's wrist and retreats to a safe room, where he spends a good ten seconds throwing locks shut.
• Papa Wolf: When he hthinks his son might be in danger, Hutch starts to swing the golf club, but stops when he sees the thief's gun isn't even loaded. However, when his daughter complains of not being able to find her kitty cat bracelet, kept in the bowl where they had the petty cash, he storms out and gets to hunting.
• Pet the Dog:
  • The very first scene of the movie is Hutch feeding a can of tuna to a stray kitten.
  • After crushing Yulian's brother's throat, Hutch takes a moment to perform a tracheotomy rather than leaving him to suffocate.
  • As it turns out, Hutch having one of these moments to a mark years ago ended up setting him on the course for the movie: He had the mark dead-to-rights and was about to give the coup-de-grace, when the mark began sobbing and begging for his life, promising to turn himself around and give up his criminal ways for good. For reasons unknown to even Hutch, he actually ended up humoring the guy and letting him go. When he followed up on the guy later to make sure he stayed true to his word, he was surprised to find the guy living a happy life, free of crime, with a family and kids, and Hutch realized how much he yearned for that life, and ended up retiring. Of course, as the events of the story show, this doesn't stick for too long after the movie picks up.
• Pin-Pulling Teeth: Instead of a grenade, Hutch uses his teeth to pull the tripwire of a Claymore mine. Earlier on, he does this with a fire extinguisher.
• Playing Card Motifs:
  • Hutch has a pair of 7 and 2 tattooed on his wrist, considered the worst hand to start with in Texas Hold'Em. Exactly what it means isn't explicitly explained,^note Symbolically speaking, the tattoo is saying that if you see a 7-2 pair, you'd better just fold because you've already lost. but it's enough to scare what is implied to be a hardened veteran out of the room as soon as he sees it.
  • In a deleted scene, the Barber is shown to have a cufflink of a pair of 8 (hearts) and 3 (spades). A prying agent backs down when he realizes the connection to Hutch.
• Police Are Useless:
  • One of the officers who arrives after the home invasion is actively condescending to Hutch, chastising him for not fighting back. (His older partner interjects that Hutch did the right thing by avoiding more violence.)
  • After Hutch's destructive battle in his home, he gets knocked out and kidnapped, frees himself, makes his way back home, showers and changes, and sends his family away. Neither his neighbors nor the cops responded in any way during all that time.
  • In the end, despite being caught by the police amid mass carnage, Hutch made it all the way to the interrogation room without being frisked, since he still has a pack of smokes, a lighter, a tin of tuna, a can opener and a live cat in his pockets while sitting there.
  Cop: [incredulous] Who the hell are you?
• Politically Incorrect Villain: One of Yulian's prospective business partners objects to the presence of a black man on his crew.
• Poor Communication Kills: The plot is kicked off by a series of coincidences that only escalate because the characters are impulsively violent and don’t investigate things beyond their immediate assumptions - Hutch’s assumption that the thieves stole his daughter’s bracelet (she actually dropped it under a couch), and Yulian’s assumption that Hutch clobbered his brother as part of some plot to steal the money he’s guarding (Hutch actually beat him up because he was threatening to rape a woman, and had no idea who he was beyond that).
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: When the goons on the bus ask Hutch why he hasn't gotten lost, he empties the bullets in his gun and simply replies, "I’m gonna fuck you up." They laugh in unison, but he makes good on that vow.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
  • Harry before launching a mook wrapped in barbed wire out of a window:
    "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking — prepare for takeoff."
  • David gets in a gleeful "Do svidanya!" before setting off an explosive.
  • Hutch, before finishing off Yulian:
    "Everybody dies... some sooner than others."
• Properly Paranoid: Hutch, a former government assassin, has his basement set up as a saferoom, much to the surprise of his wife and children.
• Rage Breaking Point: It's clear that Hutch has been stewing in a quiet fury brought on by a mid-life crisis and leaving his violent past behind. Getting robbed starts him back on the path, but the true point of no return isn't hunting down the people who robbed him, but meeting a bunch of hooligans while riding a bus home from that hunt that pushes him over the edge.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: When Yulian’s brother and his buddies get on a bus, significant attention is given to the young girl by herself trying not to make eye contact. Hutch intervenes before they can barely even look at her, but nobody is probably going to be feeling too bad for them afterward.
• A Real Man Is a Killer: After his home is robbed, Hutch is looked down upon for not striking back at, or even killing, the perpetrators. Hutch is also filled with conflicting emotions over standing down. However, he soon comes into conflict with a criminal gang that allows him to act out on his violent urges and reclaim his mojo.
• Recycled Premise: Derek Kolstad effectively recycles his own premise from John Wick. Both films are about a Retired Badass One-Man Army assassin who gets drawn back into his former lifestyle due to a relatively minor offense that brings him into conflict with the relative of a Russian gangster, who then throws all of his men at the assassin. Both characters have distinctive tattoos and lots of hidden gold. Like John Wick, Hutch is willing to travel by public transit and uses it as regular means of travel; this reaches its pinnacle with Hutch gladly brawling against a group of drunken riders to protect a girl from harm.
• Refuge in Audacity: Having burned the Obshak and killed most of Yulian's men, what does Hutch do? He heads directly to Yulian's club and eats a steak dinner while watching Yulian's show. When a dozen men draw weapons on him, he simply moves aside his napkin to reveal a live Claymore mine, with the detonator rigged to a pin around his finger. He's able to have his talk with Yulian and walk out unharmed, despite his complete destruction of the Mafiya equivalent to a 401k fund.
• Retired Badass: Hutch used to be an "Auditor" for the US Government, but retired to start a family. Also applies to his father, a former FBI agent, and his brother, whose credentials are unknown, but is a ridiculously skilled sniper.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Played with, as Hutch doesn't consider going after the thieves until he thinks they took his daughter's bracelet and backs off once he sees that they're taking care of a baby; it was more an excuse to let out his rage. Inverted with Yulian trying to go on one after Hutch beats up Teddy, only for Hutch to fight off his attempts and turn the tables.
• Rule of Symbolism: After restraining himself from beating up the thieves, Hutch reluctantly rides a bus home, still simmering with rage. A bunch of drunk, unruly men crash their SUV next to the bus and bang to be let on. Hutch's inner narration muses, "They say God doesn't close one door without opening another. Please, God, open that door." Right as he finishes this, the bus driver reluctantly opens the bus's door. Hutch's fight with the men and its fallout provide him ample opportunity to get his anger out.
• Running Gag: Hutch keeps trying to explain his backstory to thugs who die halfway through.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: At the end, despite the mountainous body count he accrued, Hutch is let go with two simple phone calls. That said, it's not a "Get Out of Jail Free" Card, as the Sequel Hook has him contacted by what's implied to be those who got him off the hook for another kill mission.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Yulian’s henchwoman promptly quits without pay once she learns of who Hutch really is.
  • While Hutch is looking for the robbers from a specific tattoo, he encounters a veteran who recognizes Hutch's own tattoo. The veteran proceeds to be cordial as he hastily locks himself behind a steel wall with multiple latches.
  • There are a handful of Meaningful Background Event moments of henchmen running away in the final battle.
• Sequel Hook: The film ends with Hutch receiving a phone call from what's implied to be his old taskmasters giving him a new assassination job. A mid-credits scene also reveals Harry and David driving to an unknown location with a storeroom's worth of guns and ammunition in their van.
• Sexless Marriage: Hutch and Becca share a bed, but Becca keeps a pillow barrier between the two of them. When she's tending his injuries, Hutch notes they've gone months without sex and years without actually making love. Becca removing the pillow between them is a sign the marriage is recovering.
• Short-Range Long-Range Weapon: Harry uses his Sniper Rifle in extreme close quarters, both as a gun and for Pistol-Whipping, even lining up three headshots with one shot.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: David Mansell is a big believer in this as he carries and uses nothing but multiple shotguns.
• Shout-Out: The first trailer milked the John Wick connection for all its worth, with the main poster looking nearly identical to that of John Wick: Chapter 2, just with fists instead of guns pointing at Hutch's head.
• Sibling Team: Hutch and Harry.
• Soldiers at the Rear: When his son talks of needing to interview a veteran it's shown that Hutch’s family thinks he was an actual auditor in the Army, and it's considered a point against his manliness. Becca even remarks that her brother Charlie was a "real soldier", although Hutch mentions he was never in combat. Obviously, Hutch was no POG, but it’s subverted beyond that when it turns out Charlie is a ridiculous macho Manchild who can’t work his way around a gun.
• Somebody Named "Nobody": Hutch's titular codename.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • Hutch burning his house (and all the mooks in its basement) to the ground is set to "What a Wonderful World", which starts playing on an in-universe vinyl (the sparks from the needle dropping start the fire) before turning into background music.
  • A montage of Hutch mowing down Yulian's goons is set to Andy Williams' "The Impossible Dream".
• Spiritual Antithesis:
  • To A History of Violence - a father with a Mysterious Past of sorts leaves it to start a family but is brought back into the criminal underworld upon leaving a trail of bodies. While A History of Violence is a serious look at the psychological toll of violence, this film is a comedic look at what happens when inherently violent people try to live normal lives.
  • To the John Wick films, which are about a man who's trying to leave a life of violence behind but finds himself forced back in. This film, conversely, is about a man who tried leaving a life of violence behind and is now looking for an excuse to return to it.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Hutch's fight against the goons on the bus displays this for both sides of the brawl.
    • After being out of the game and not training for several decades, Hutch's combat skills are rusty at first, and he has considerable difficulty fighting against five men half his age. He's also completely drained by the middle of the fight and powers through it via sheer stubbornness.
    • On the flip side, while the men have the advantage of being much younger and outnumbering Hutch five to one, they are also street thugs with no formal fighting experience or training who mostly go after civilians. After Hutch finds his feet, they clearly struggle against someone who is highly trained, very experienced and knowledgeable in fighting. Being visibly drunk definitely didn't help, either (perhaps that even helped, as they displayed an unusually high tolerance for the severe injuries Hutch inflicted on them).
  • While Hutch manages to save Teddy from choking on his own blood via a tracheotomy, the beating he gave him also gave him irreversible brain damage.
  • During the bus fight, one of the thugs punches Hutch in the back of the head and then cries out in pain. The hardest bones in the body are in the skull, while some of the most fragile are in the fingers. It's really easy to break your hand by punching someone in a bony part of the head, though getting struck in the back of the head ("rabbit punched") is also quite dangerous.
  • The fact that Hutch is fighting on a narrow bus means there's less cover for him to take advantage of, which means he's much more open for punishment. Compare that to the fights at his house and the construction company, where he can pick off his targets without exposing himself as much.
    • On the other hand, the tight spot also helped Hutch a lot in fighting, with him being out of shape after so long. He has a really hard time fighting the bad guys who aren't able to attack him all at once. Considering the difficulty with which he fought them having these advantages if he didn't have them, he most likely would have died.
  • The federal mandate that trunks have safeties allows Hutch to open an escape route out of his abductors' vehicle and their failure to securely tie Hutch down lets him grab a fire extinguisher and blind them. Hutch escapes after the vehicle crashes and rolls over, but Hutch needs a moment to get his bearings after being in the vehicle without a safety belt.
• Talking to the Dead: Twice in the movie, Hutch exposits on his past to assassins dying/bleeding to death who then die before he can finish his story.
• There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: When Hutch presents money to the veteran at the tattoo parlor, he says, "You probably shouldn't flash cheese like that around here, bro." Hutch responds with the following:
  "There are three types of people who, as you say, 'flash cheese': people who don't know any better, people who are seeking to intimidate, and people like me who wish with every fiber of their being that someone would try to take it from them."
• Suspicious Ski Mask:
  • The two burglars that break into Hutch's home wear three-hole ski masks. Though they aren't quite as violent and ruthless as they appear since the gun they use is unloaded. Later in the movie, it's somewhat subverted after Hutch tracks them down as they are shown to be more Sympathetic Criminal than ruthless thugs as they are a struggling couple who have a baby that Hutch finds in a crib wearing a breathing mask attached to an oxygen tank. This causes him to leave the home rather than make any further attempt to get revenge.
  • The hit squad sent by the Russian Mob later in the movie wears a mouthless variety of ski masks. And, unlike the couple, they play the trope fully straight as they are a ruthless group of mercenaries for hire who have no qualms with killing Hutch in his home with fully automatic weapons.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Hutch refuses to kill anybody at the start of the movie - even against the goons on the bus he merely incapacitates them in rather gruesome ways, and saves one’s life after dealing a potentially fatal blow. He drops this when gunmen show up at his house, however.
• Title Drop: Whenever anyone asks Hutch who he is, he responds with "I'm nobody"; it's implied that "Nobody" was his code name back in his heyday. The film even lampshades how obvious it is; the first time Hutch is asked, he can only say "I'm-" before a Smash Cut to the title.
• Token Minority:
  • The couple who robbed Hutch's house turn out to be Latinos.
  • One of the guys whom Hutch beats up on the train is black, with the rest white.
  • One of Yulian's mooks is black, which gets commented as the other Russians don't realize that he's Russian. The guy explains that his parents were an Ethiopian athlete and a Russian woman who met during the 1980 Moscow Olympics, though his father was not involved past his conception. Hutch later says he's never met a black Russian before and the guy replies he gets that reaction pretty often.
  • Harry, Hutch's adopted brother, also turns out to be black.
• Too Dumb to Live: While she makes it out just fine herself, what could the bus driver possibly have been thinking opening her doors late at night on an empty street to a full car of large, tattooed, drunk men who had literally just drunkenly crashed their car mere feet away from her at what is presumably not even a legal bus stop.
• Truth in Television: Russians can be incredibly racist, and they're often open about it.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Two mobsters attempt to kill David in his nursing home. He stops one from giving him a point-blank headshot by stopping the hammer falling with his finger and whips out a shotgun to blast them both, disguising the sound as gunshots from a cowboy show with the volume cranked up.
  • Hutch in general gets a lot of this. Most people look at him and see nothing more than a skinny, mild-mannered suburban dad and husband. In reality, he's a highly trained and extremely efficient killer.
• Unreliable Narrator: Lampshaded with Hutch. While relating a story about holding a gun to a man's head, he first claims it is a Walther PPK, he then corrects himself to saying it was an H&K USP 45, with the flashback updating accordingly (hilariously, to a USP 9, showing the flashback to be even more unreliable).
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: After beating up some goons on a bus Hutch comes home and exchanges some words with Becca in the dark, when she asks him to come closer he steps into the light with a bloodied face and clothing. Her reaction is not of shock but indicates this has happened before. Later conversations imply she knows at least some details of Hutch's past.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Luis and Lupita, the young couple who attempt to burgle the Mansells' house in search of money to treat their sick baby (which proved to be a bust anyway, as they didn't have much worth stealing). Had they chosen another house, Hutch's violent impulses wouldn't have come up for air, he wouldn't have gone after them in search of his daughter's bracelet, and he would never have been on that bus in a foul mood to have a run-in with Teddy and his cronies, meaning a great deal of death and destruction could have been averted (though, admittedly, an innocent young woman would likely have been raped).
  • Had the bus driver simply refused service to several obvious drunks who just crashed their car, the entire plot could have been avoided.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Hutch's family, friends, and coworkers call him out for not fighting off the burglars who broke into his home. This encourages him to get back to basics.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Yulian orders Hutch taken alive, which naturally means that the one time his goons are able to get the better of Hutch, it doesn’t stick. A somewhat justified example, since it's implied that Hutch has connections in very high places, and Yulian probably didn't want to piss off some people more dangerous than he was.
• Wicked Cultured: Yulian's hobby is collecting art.
• With Due Respect: One of Yulian's henchman in points out that the man never even liked his brother after the latter is left comatose and possibly permanently brain damaged after pissing off Hutch on the bus. The henchman does so very cautiously, which is justified since Yulian is kind of an Ax-Crazy Russian gangster, but all Yulian does is gently chide him that his statement was "as true as it was unwise to say".
• Would Harm a Senior: Yulian sends a duo to kill Hutch's elderly father in his retirement home. David easily kills both.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • The squad sent to Hutch’s home has at least two women in it, and neither of them survive the night. The female thief’s gun being empty is also the only reason that she doesn’t get a golf club through the skull.
  • Squeamishness surrounding fighting women apparently does not exist in this world - in real life cold-cocking a woman in the back with a golf club would be a controversial decision, even if she did have a gun, but here not doing so makes Hutch a subject of mockery.
• Xanatos Gambit: The final act has Hutch set things up so that the situation works in his favor no matter what Yulian does. If Yulian decides to end the feud, Hutch gets to go back to his life having scratched his violent itch. If Yulian decides to carry on, Hutch gets to have the all-out mayhem he's been craving for years and then go back to his life.

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Interrogator: Who the fuck are you?
Hutch: Me? I'm nobody.

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