Heroism is an innate virtue. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do to protect our loved ones — and most of us like to imagine we’d extend that same altruism to any innocent in danger. We fantasize about leaping into action, taking on an assassin, a horde of assassins, even an entire criminal syndicate, if that’s what it took. This primal instinct — this myth of the ordinary person pushed to extraordinary violence — is one writer, Derek Kolstad, understands intimately. It’s the conceit that powered John Wick, and it’s what makes his latest franchise, Nobody, just as compelling.

Kolstad’s 2021 film introduced us to Hutch Mansell, played with surprising grit and deadpan charm by Bob Odenkirk, the silver-tongued solicitor from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Hutch was a mild-mannered suburban father with a dormant past as a highly effective hitman. In Nobody 2, Kolstad’s latest film, he’s still trying to mop up the mess from the first movie — his evenings are spent carrying out routine hits for his bosses, much to the dismay of his wife and children.