Definite bait and switch. You will not be getting a White guy on a rampage against hoodlums that you come across in real life (Mexicans/Blacks). Instead, you get yet another John Wick Russian mafia vendetta. So for me, as someone who deeply loves Russia, the film was nonstop schadenfreude. And a lot more “schaden” than the “freude” to be honest.
However the bait and switch in it was also what made the film more interesting than the other types in its genre. Is it yet another midlife crisis White guy snapping type movie (e.g. Fight Club, American Beauty, Click, Stranger Than Fiction, Office Space, etc.) ? Or is it another patriarchal revenge porn type movie (e.g. Mad Max, John Wick, Taken, etc.) ? Well it’s a mixture of the two and the dark comedy bits make it worth the watch. Lots of clichés subverted and a few twists and turns that kept things interesting to the very end. One one hand, not having the typical divide and conquer Hollywood BS about evil Whites v.s. Blacks was a relief. But on the other hand, it’s disappointing to see more stereotypical Russian bad guys. They are the only safe group to hate nowadays and the Russophobia in recent years makes me sick.
Other parts in the film made me wonder if this movie was a PR piece for alphabet agencies and stoking anti-Russian sentiments now that Beijing Biden is in office and we need a scapegoat to counter the pro-Russia Trumpism of recent years. I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes out that the CIA or FBI was somehow involved in this film like they were for many others. But after googling a bit it doesn’t seem so. Once I looked into the director, it turns out it’s the same guy who made Hardcore Henry. His (((early life))) section on Wikipedia is what you’d expect from anyone in Hollywood, but he is also a Russian who spent a lot of his childhood there. So the Russian bad guy thing might just be out of convenience and comfortability, along with being a safe group to hate nowadays. Not an agenda, per se.
Regardless, I am on the fence about if you should pay to see it. Pay to see it because we need more films about White males who reject modernity trying to turn them into beta bug men pencil pushers. ( Very redpilling subplots about female attraction and men keeping true to their purpose and not giving it up for any woman. ) But if you are sick of anti-Russian clichés, then don’t pay, and go rent the latest Rambo where he goes ham on a bunch of Mexicans with a very similar crescendo to Nobody‘s.
