Il'ja Najšuller
Io sono nessuno

A T T E N T I O N ! ! !

Contains spoilers galore, so for those bothered by this fact, it's better to stay away from reading further. Consider yourself warned - forewarned is forearmed...!

Yesterday John Fante (not the real one r.i.p.) wrote on “Fuori Orario, cose (mai) viste” a Public Group with as many as 164,227 Members (uh, 164,228 including me): IO SONO NESSUNO - IL'JA NAJŠULLER – 4.5/10 (uh, I think that's the rating he gave it)

I was hoping for an enjoyable action movie, with an engaging story and a heart-pounding rhythm...

I found myself watching a film that managed to make me despise violence (I'll never forgive it for that), thanks to a plot that is the most banal I've seen in recent years and scenes of violence so exaggerated they are grotesque.

The story features a man who, in the opening scenes, seems to lead such an ordinary and predictable life that it is all too similar to that of many of us: work, family dinner, early to bed.

However, everything changes when two burglars enter his home and in the heat of the moment, accidentally steal his daughter's bracelet...

I would describe this film as the perfect middle ground between "A History Of Violence" (which I adore) and "John Wick" (which I find equally pointless)...

Bad, bad, bad...

And of course, I got instantly hooked savasansdir, so I bit the bait like a tuna (without then regretting it), so I watched it today instead of taking the shower I had planned (I promise I'll take it tomorrow, since I don't have to work until next year...).

A few words on the Russian director Il'ja Viktorovič Najšuller whom I knew nothing about, before becoming one, he was the singer/guitarist of the (absolutely unknown to me) “Biting Elbows" a Moscow indie rock band formed in 2008 and who supported the Guns N' Roses concert in 2012 in Moscow, then in 2015 he directed his first feature film “Hardcore Henry” an adventurous, sci-fi action thriller (which I haven't seen yet but will remedy) where he also participated as an actor, followed in 2021 with this his second and last (for now) “Nobody” which for the record made 57 and a half million $$$ out of a 16 million $$$ budget at the box office.

Okay, I'll be brief given the lengthy introduction, but ruthless with the spoilers I mentioned at the beginning.

The film opens pleasantly with the credits highlighted by the beautiful voice of Nina Simone singing “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and the OST also includes (a piece that, between us, would make even our Ilovemusic lose it) “Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 23: I. Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky” among the 15 tracks there are jazz pieces and the famous “What a Wonderful World“ by good old Louis Armstrong, as well as music by the famous British composer David Buckley, thus the beginning comes from the end (I don't know what this cinematographic device is called but it has a specific term rest assured) that is, the protagonist is found with handcuffs and a bruised face, in front of a couple of plainclothes police officers, while smoking a cigarette with handcuffs on he opens a can of tuna and pulls out a hungry and scrawny kitten that pounces on it...

We will discover that our hero has a past he intended to bury and had succeeded until someone unknowingly makes him reconsider what he had buried.

The rest (and it's fitting to say) flows like blood through veins without interruption until the end, maybe with a predictable and a bit obvious plot, it would almost seem like a western but it involves the Russian mafia relocated to the States with the villain of the moment, there's the FBI with its secrets (but not for us who follow the stories loaded with punches, kicks, stabs, gunshots, grenades, etc.,), there's an unsuspecting family unaware of the man's past now handcuffed and there's even (now 82 years old) the legendary Christopher Allen Lloyd (he's come a long way since “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, indeed he has) whom I hadn't seen since “Sin City - A Dame to Kill For” of 2014 who goes all out with sawed-off shotguns and more even though he’s a retired recluse in a retirement home, the film ends with our avenger in Clint Eastwood fashion, feeding the kitten or cat as it may be uh, we'll find out soon...