• Nobody

Nobody

Taki, Nanbu and Konishi, three friends and fellow employees at a Japanese advertising agency, are out at a favorite bar and while in the middle of the usual shop talk, make the mistake of making some insulting, disparaging remarks about the group of upscale-looking guys at the next table. And just as in Edgar Allen Poe's A Cask Of Amontillado, a few simple insults have a deadly, far-reaching effect... our friends have definitely insulted the wrong guys. This is one of the most effective suspense thrillers you're likely to have seen in quite a while... the kind that Hollywood WISHES it could turn out. The way in which the initial insult prompts a reaction from the "victims", which in turn prompts a response from our "heroes" that gets out of hand, and continues into a lethal campaign of terror, will have you on the proverbial edge of your seat right up until the very last scene... and that's meant literally: don't relax when the movie SEEMS to come to a conclusion 95 minutes into its 100-minute length, because there are still a COUPLE of major twists and turns awaiting you. It might not even be going too far to see a certain commentary about how modern Japanese society has effected the emotional health of the typical salaryman (kind of like a dramatic version of the comedy Shall We Dance?), but this is definitely not a message movie. It's a thriller that Hitchcock himself, or Patricia Highsmith (whose original novel was the source of Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train) would probably have been glad to call their own. If the schlocky thrillers mainstream studios have been turning out in recent years have got you down, see Nobody and take comfort that, though it may not be happening in the U.S. any more, some film-makers CAN still chill an audience like they used to.

Starring Masaya Katoh, Riki Takeuchi, Hiromi Nakajima, Hideo Nakano and Jimpachi Nezu. (Review written: 10/4/02)

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