Cert - 15, Run-time - 1 hour 28 minutes, Director - Ben Wheatley

A temporary sheriff (Bob Odenkirk) finds it difficult to leave a peaceful town as he found it when it seems the population is hiding a deadly secret.

As temporary sheriff Ulysses Richardson (Bob Odenkirk) tells us in his opening monology that he plans to leave the sleepy town of Normal, Minnesota, and its population of just over 1000, exactly as he found it you know exactly what kind of film you're in for. Thus begins Nobody meets Hot Fuzz.

Screenwriter Derek Kolstad had conversations about his screenplay for Normal with Odenkirk, who receives a story credit alongside Kolstad, before production on 2021's excellent Nobody, which turned the actor into an unexpected action star; and there are similarities between Ulysses and Hutch Mansell. However, the former truly doesn't have Hutch's special, advanced military-trained skills, finding it best to keep out of things as much as possible. A parking ticket is less a fine and more a note telling someone to park better.

It's the kind of law enforcement that fits Normal perfectly, at least on the surface. It isn't long until the interim sheriff, present until a new one is elected in the wake of the previous incumbent's death, discovers a secret it seems the whole town is involved in covering up and protecting. The unveiling comes in the form of the response to a bank robbery; from there the action is almost non-stop as Odenkirk's character investigates Normal's Yakuza connections, and fighting off those who try to defend it with either kitchen utensils or the highly stocked police station armoury.

The action has the improvised nature of Nobody, but would the sharp John-Wick-esque skills and swiftness. There's a well-tracked messiness to the scraps and weapons that we see. Gelling with the everyman protagonist who remains that way for much of the 88-minute run-time - even with Odenkirk still selling himself as an entertaining, if still enjoyably unconventional, action star. One who's consistently entertaining as he pushes both action and humour. In the director's chair, Ben Wheatley gives a knowing nod to the oblivious, although increasingly suspicious, outsider in a small town humour, of course acknowledging the feelings of Hot Fuzz.

There's not a full, wry, British-feeling sensibility, but still a knowingness at hand, specially during the familiar but still amusing first half build-up. But, once things pick up there's plenty to enjoy in the fast-paced stages of fights which embrace pure popcorn entertainment, flowing from one to the next with, like Nobody, a real non-fluff swiftness, as reflected in the run-time.

Wheatley, Kolstad and Odenkirk all bring a self-awareness to Ulysses and the shady town he's dropped into. There's no attempt to hide the influences for both screenwriter and director, and there's a fun time with plenty of thrills, spills and occasional winces that feel perfectly in place with the film's style and, thanks to early establishment with a Yakuza opening, an avoidance of over-escalation as the threats shift and grow in the icy containment of the not-so-quiet town.

Four stars.