NOVOCAINE REVIEW
“Transforms its high-concept premise into something funny, clever and thoroughly entertaining.”
Selling a movie in Hollywood is incredibly difficult, and often, it’s all about having a great premise and an even greater pitch. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if Lars Jacobson’s screenplay for Novocaine immediately appealed to studio execs with its high-concept premise of an action movie involving a guy who can feel no pain. It probably felt like a home run, and having seen that concept brought to life by filmmakers Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, with Jack Quaid in the lead, I can only imagine it didn’t take very long to get said action movie greenlit.
Jack Quaid plays San Diego assistant bank manager Nate Caine, who has a neural condition where he can’t feel any pain or much of anything. It has made his life more difficult since he can’t eat solid food (he’s worried about biting his own tongue and not feeling it), and he has to set a timer to remind himself to urinate, since otherwise, well, you can guess… and thankfully, the movie never goes there. Nate has had a thing for his coworker, Amber Midthunder’s Sherry, and shortly after they finally get to spend time together, three men dressed in Santa suits rob their bank and take Sherry hostage. Having fallen truly in love, Nate decides to take matters into his own hands and find her, getting into altercations with a bunch of unseemly characters.
It’s pretty obvious as you watch Novocaine that the filmmakers really thought of clever ways they could use Nate’s condition to create a fun and exciting twist on the revenge action-thriller that we’ve seen so many times over the past few decades. Coming so soon after the slightly similar Love Hurts, it’s obvious that this particular action concept was far better realized, so that it wasn’t JUST about the action scenes, of which Novocaine has plenty.
Anyone who has read anything I’ve ever written probably knows that I’m an absolute sucker for romance, and Novocaine begins with a really sweet one between Nate and Sherry, something that grounds the film and sets up Nate’s motivations for putting himself into danger in order to save Sherry. There’s definitely a few twists to that relationship as the film goes along, but that is the heart of the film, and without that, the rest would be meaningless.
Between this and Companion, I’ve become a massive fan of Jack Quaid; honestly, I’m even tempted to maybe check out The Boys when I have a chance. He fares better playing a straight-up nice guy, an “everyman” if you will, than he did with the darker layers of that thriller, but I also enjoyed that thoroughly. I also loved seeing Amber Midthunder – who was terrific in Prey and the underrated The Ice Road – taking on a role that’s not just about the action, though she does get to do some high-paced driving later in the movie. Ray Nicholson, the film’s other 2nd gen actor, is also decent as one of the robbers, a role that really doesn’t offer much but is better from how he plays it.
The fact is that most people will be more excited about seeing the action and the violence that comes with the concept of a man that can feel no pain. That aspect offers some great stuff, from a unique twist on the kitchen scene battle we’ve seen in the John Wick and other films, as well as a few high-speed chase scenes. Make no mistake that this movie earns its R-rating from the amount of violence and gore, although even that is often done in a way that is not only meant to elicit shocked gasps from the audience but also more than a few laughs.
For some reason, I missed Berk and Olsen’s more recent movie, Significant Other, but there wasn’t anything in Villains that made me think that they could handle a straight-up action movie like this one, let alone one that’s as funny as a bonafide comedy. Some of that comes from Nate’s situation, but it’s helped by the fact that his video game buddy is played by Jacob Batalon from the Spider-Man movies, who delivers some of the film’s funniest one-liners. They also have a few ringers in there, like Matt Walsh as one of the cops trying to find the bank robbers, and eventually Nate, once he steals a police car. The point is that this never takes anything too seriously and keeps things light enough that you can watch all sorts of jarring violence but still be on board to see what happens next.
Essentially, Novocaine is able to transform its high-concept premise into something funny, clever and thoroughly entertaining. It’s exactly the type of movie that is able to deliver the type of good time people are looking for when they go out to the movie theaters.
Rating: 7.5/10
Novocaine opens nationwide on Friday, March 14.