I’ve tried to watch 3 new movies today – **Vanquish (2021), Nobody (2021), The Courier (2021)**. They have one thing in common - we're (back) in the very familiar political era where Russians are again the biggest and most amoral, vicious, evil ever. Here is the formula - _(A[Popular character actor]) + (B[Video game plot]) + (C[Russian villains)_ = 2021 Hollywood movies.

**Nobody (2021)** and **Vanquish (2021)** are basically the same movie. RIP Mexican (or other Latin American) drug lords, you no longer exist in Hollywood world because you might hurt sensitive American feelings. Now it’s all about Russian mafia.

**Nobody (2021)** is a celebration of American masculinity. Violence is the answer and is so awesome; Russians are bad, killing them leads to a fulfilling American life. That’s the moral of the story. Seriously! That’s it! The protagonist killed a bunch of people under the pretext Russians went to his house to get revenge. But it’s okay, it’s okay. Why? Because, he is 1) American, and 2) a former CIA agent, so it’s totally cool that he killed so many people. What are the consequences of his actions? Well, just like in real life after Americans are done with brutalizing and murdering people in foreign counties, they go on to live the American dream - a white picket fence suburban house with blonde wife and dumb children.

Everything offered up here borders on cliché. The writing is super bland and predictable. The seven-minute introduction of the ~~quirky psychotic villain (who is as generic as they come) is a trope that is already tired enough. The characters are insanely one-dimensional, with no real traits that factor into the plot (besides _"the Russian villain", "the wife"_, etc.), there's zero purpose behind anyone's actions or the movie itself in its entirety.

I'm so over movies about American (or British) exceptionalism. Americans just loooove the fantasy Hollywood version of themselves.

All three movies offset the eyeroll-worthy ugliness of a 2021 film being about an American/Brit gleefully slaughtering a bunch of Russians. A heinous laundering of American/Bri'ish liberal chauvinism. They cater to a single demographic, and relies on unoriginal content to cover up the fact they are way too masturbatory that nobody outside of the target audience can relate. But this is the future of American/Bri'ish cinema, we are just going to constantly recycle the same themes and topics over and over again until the end of time.

I'm reminded of Dziga Vertov's comment on Western Cinema from 99 years ago.
>quote _“To the American adventure film with its showy dynamism and to the dramatizations of the American Pinkertons the Kinoks say thanks for the rapid shot changes and the close-ups. Good…but disorderly, not based on a precise study of movement…still lacking a foundation. **A cliche**.”_