NOBODY 2

NOBODY 2 is the sequel to a popular action thriller where an unassuming but tough American assassin who usually works for the government runs into a violent international gang of smugglers while he and his family are on a long overdue vacation at a chintzy resort with a rundown water park. NOBODY 2 isn’t quite as viscerally entertaining and satisfying as the first movie, partly because the vicious villain really isn’t introduced until the second act, and the pro-family sequel still contains too much extreme violence and strong foul language.

After years of being away from his government handlers, Hutch Mansell is enjoying getting back into his old routine of stomping bad guys. However, he’s starting to feel overworked and drifting apart again from his wife, Becca, and their two children. He decides he and the family need a vacation. So, one morning, he promises Becca he’ll plan something by the end of the day.

After Hutch retrieves a computer card from some reluctant bad guys in a hotel elevator, he encounters two other groups of gangsters also wanting the card. He dispatches one group in a hallway and a third group in the parking garage. After the mayhem, he sees a bumper sticker on a van advertising a place called Plummerville. Plummerville turns out to be a tourist trap and waterpark that Hutch and his brother, Harry, visited with their father, David, a workaholic FBI agent, their only vacation together.

Back home, the wife and children are skeptical, but Hutch convinces them it will be great. It may be a tourist trap, but Hutch and Harry had a wonderful time there, even though their dad abandoned them to work on a case nearby.

So, the whole family piles into the car with Hutch’s father and drive to Plummerville and Wild Bill’s Majestic Midway and Waterpark. The family stops at a little restaurant, where Hutch has a testy exchange with a sullen deputy sheriff named Abel who caught Hutch staring in his direction. Hutch was only just having a nice memory of eating in the restaurant with his brother and father years ago.

After checking into their rooms, the grandfather decides he’d rather stay at one of the lodges in the waterpark. The family goes to the waterpark, where they find that the big water slide is closed for the day due to some mysterious “incident.” So, they all head over to the arcade.

At the arcade, the teenage son, Brady, wins a bunch of arcade tickets. He hands half the tickets to three teenage girls standing nearby admiring him. Brady and his sister, Sammy, play another game, and Brady wins her a nice stuffed animal toy. However, a teenage boy angrily approaches Brady and accuses Brady of flirting with his girlfriend, one of the three teenage girls. Brady denies it, but the boy grabs Sammy’s stuffed toy and rips it in half. So, Brady gets angry and punches the guy in the face, and they get into a scuffle. A bouncer comes along, and he and Hutch break up the fight. Hutch tries to calm the bouncer down, but, when Hutch and the family exit the arcade, the man flicks his hand at Sammy’s head. Hutch notices this but quietly exits the arcade with the family. However, he pauses and decides to return, against the advice of his wife. Inside, Hutch angrily attacks the bouncer and the bouncer’s buddies who come to help him.

Hutch and Brady end up in the Sheriff’s office, run by a man named Wyatt Martin. Martin not only owns the waterpark, having inherited it from his father, but the boy Brady fought, Buddy, also happens to be Martin’s son. Martin informs Hutch that Brady hurt his son’s pitching arm. He advises Hutch and his family to leave town. Then, when Hutch and Brady leave the sheriff’s office, Sheriff Martin orders Deputy Abel to leave Hutch and his family alone. However, Deputy Abel orders another deputy to gather up “the boys” and teach Hutch a lesson.

The next day, Hutch and the family gather to ride “the Ducks,” a set of large boats designed to give tourists rides around the lake. Hutch notices the deputy and three men approaching. He ships the family off on one of the boats and gets on an empty boat. He tries to negotiate a truce with the deputy and the three men, but they’re not listening to him, even when a few stray tourists and a boat guide hop onto the boat and begin a ride.

As the boat guide talks to the tourists in the front of the boat, Hutch and the four men have a big fight in the back. Hutch naturally gets the better of the bullies, but one of them cuts off the tip of Hutch’s pinky.

After the fight, Hutch calls his handler, The Barber, to ask him what he knows about Plummerville. The Barber tells Hutch a brutal female gangster named Lendina runs a major international smuggling operation out of the place. Don’t mess with her, he tells Hutch. She’ll flay your family alive right in front of you, he warns.

Hutch finds out the warehouse where the gangster’s henchmen hang out. Deputy Able is there, planning another big smuggling operation. A big pile of cash sits in the middle of the warehouse. Hutch tries to make peace after pouring gasoline over the money and holding his lighter above the pile. Against his better judgment, Abel agrees to Hutch’s proposal. So, Hutch disengages his lighter and starts to leave.

However, what Hutch doesn’t know is that Sheriff Martin has told Lendina that he’s finally paid her everything his late father owed her, and he wants to stop working for her. In response, Lendina has ordered Deputy Abel to kidnap Martin’s son and force the Sheriff’s hand.

Just as Hutch starts to leave, the Sheriff’s son escapes from a closed van in the warehouse, and Abel’s men grab him and herd him back into the van. Hutch leaves and starts to drive his car away. However, he decides he can’t let the evil deputy, and his men keep Sheriff Martin’s son. So, he re-enters the warehouse. Outside the warehouse, the sounds of big fight are heard and tow of Abel’s henchmen come flying out the door and through a winder. Inside, while Hutch is fighting Abel and the remaining henchmen, a fire starts, consumes the cash and reaches barrels of explosive material. Hutch and the Sheriff’s son barely escape in time before the explosion, but it’s unclear whether Deputy Abel got out in time.

Hutch and Buddy visit Sheriff Martin. Martin is really angry, but Hutch and Buddy convince him that Hutch just saved Buddy’s life.

Back at the little cabin where Hutch’s father is staying, Hutch’s family is about to have a barbecue together. Hutch’s brother, Harry, has arrived too.

Hutch and Buddy arrive at the cabin. Harry stays to protect Biddy and Hutch’s family. Meanwhile, Hutch and his father return to the water park to help Sheriff Martin set up some booby traps and weapons for the arrival of Lendina and her henchmen aiming to murder everyone they find. She sends a team of guys to travel to the cabin and kill Hutch’s family, but Harry is ready for them.

NOBODY 2 isn’t quite as viscerally entertaining and satisfying as the first movie. That’s partly or mostly because the big villain isn’t introduced near the end of the first act. Even then, she doesn’t become the major threat until the end of the second act. In the first movie, however, the big villain is introduced right away, and the war between him and the hero, Hutch, begins right after the first big fight, where Hutch seriously injures the villain’s vicious brother, a bully who soon dies of his injuries. The big villain keeps turning down Hutch’s offers for peace, even though Hutch has proved clearly that it’s not wise to mess with him. So, there’s a visceral pleasure when Hutch, and also, eventually, his father and brother, keep overcoming everything the villain throws at them.

NOBODY 2 keeps the pro-family theme from the first movie going. The sequel increases the stakes by having the hero help defend a second family, the Sheriff and his teenage son. Also, the hero is battling bullies and evil gangsters, who are led by a brutal psychopath, a ruthless and mentally disturbed female gangster played by Sharon Stone.

NOBODY 2 still contains too much extreme violence and strong foul language, however. So, MOVIEGUIDE® rates this sequel as excessive and unacceptable, though not abhorrent.