Odenkirk plays "Hutch," a hitman who owes a colossal amount of money to some bad people, and who is kept so busy paying off his debt that he senses he's about to lose his suburban family. So, he talks them into retracing his childhood steps to a place that holds happy memories for him – only to discover that Plummerville isn't really as nice as he remembers. Maybe it never was. But behind the bad cops and a theme park owner who is into some seriously shady business, there's an even bigger baddie whose flamboyant evil is blended with what seems like florid psychosis. A truly spooky person. Fulfilling the prophecy of the guy he owes bigtime ("Wherever you go, there you are"), Hutch stumbles into a volatile situation and blows it all the way up, all while seemingly inescapable doom closes in on him and his family. And he does it all with a put-upon, "I'm just trying to make memories with my family" attitude – viscerally incapable of backing down.
This sequel hits a lot of the same beats as the original movie, including the framing device in which a couple of police interrogators demand to know who the hell Hutch is, moments before getting a phone call where an indistinct voice yells at them to let him go and forget all about it. It also features Connie Nielsen (Gladiator, Wonder Woman) as Hutch's wife, who is surprisingly aware and accepting of his violent lifestyle; Lloyd as Hutch's dad, a retired hitman who lets loose a little in the climactic battle; RZA of hip hop's Wu-Tang Clan as Hutch's unlikely brother; Colin Hanks (Tom's son, known for TV's Fargo and Roswell) as a crooked sheriff whose demise is a gory pleasure to witness; veteran action movie heavy Daniel Bernhardt as (cough) a heavy; Colin Salmon (of the Bond franchise, Krypton and Arrow) as the crime boss who holds a huge debt over Hutch (a consequence of the trouble he stirred up in the first movie); and a 26-year-old guy named Gage Munroe, mostly known as a voice actor, as Hutch's teenaged son – just something I thought I'd mention because it struck me as weird.
The action is wonderfully ridiculous. So, so, so over-the-top. The hero, if he is that, takes a licking and, like the time bomb he is, keeps on ticking. Gives as good as he gets, as they say. When survival seems beyond hope, the insanity goes up another notch. When you think it's run out of notches to go up, it finds another one. It doesn't lack much that the first movie had, except maybe a certain indescribable edge of cool irony and black humor. Then again, it doesn't add anything that the first movie lacked. Not a disappointment if you saw the first movie and know what to expect. But not a surprise, either.
Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Hutch realizes that the bully who antagonized his son is about to be murdered, just as he's making a tactical withdrawal from an enemy stronghold ... and for a breathless moment, you're not sure he isn't going to leave the kid to his fate. (2) As the bully's father describes Lendina (Stone's character) to Hutch, and warns that by now she's already on her way there, a scene of Lendina acting absolutely bonkers plays out over his off-screen voice. I'm watching it and thinking, as if I hadn't seen enough by now to know it, "There's something seriously wrong with this woman." (3) The four-on-one knife, fist and blunt-object fight on board a touristy "duck" boat. Not the military transport kind. A pontoon boat with an enormous rubber duckie on its roof. Maybe the closest this movie comes to that absurdist, darkly funny tone the first movie hit so much more often.
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