Novocaine delivers a funny dose of violent shenanigans
Novocaine opens with a needle drop that signifies a level of spot-on self-awareness that perfectly sets up the tone of the film, as if the filmmakers are telling us, “Hey, our film is gonna be ridiculous, melodramatic, and won’t pull any punches, so just sit back and enjoy!” Using Jack Quaid’s everyman charm and a central conceit that allows for an abundance of inventive comedic violence, Novocaine fulfills its goal of delivering preposterous hard-hitting entertainment.
Jack Quaid (The Boys; Companion) stars as Nathan Caine, an assistant bank manager who has romantic feelings for bank teller Sherry, played by Amber Midthunder (Prey). Nathan also has a biological disorder that prevents him from feeling any pain, at all. As Sherry and Nathan finally start hitting things off, a bank robbery results in Sherry being taken hostage, and Nathan ventures in pursuit of the criminals. The set up is effective and simple, allowing for Nathan’s condition to be exploited in hilarious romantically-comedic ways pre-bank robbery, and sadistically violent (but hilarious) ways as he tracks down the criminals. Quaid and Midthunder have great chemistry, which is crucial in selling Nathan’s law-breaking persistence. And not many actors can balance comedy, action, and charm like Quaid can. Novocaine would fall flat without his perfect delivery of one-liners, expressiveness, and cartoonish yelps.
A handful of fight scenes provide the filmmakers, Dan Berk and Robert Olsen (Significant Other), ample opportunity to conjure ridiculous ways in which Nathan can get hurt, then use those un-feeling injuries to his fighting advantage. The fight choreography is sharp, the one-liners are strong, and the gruesome injuries are playful even when they’re gory. While Nathan’s non-feeling shtick doesn’t get tiresome, the trope of a final bad guy continuously coming back from being left-for-dead does drag on too far. The ongoing, mostly unfunny final fifteen minutes of Novocaine suck some of the inventive wind out of Novocaine’s narrative sails, and forces the film into a serviceable, if not unspectacular finish. Nevertheless, the preceding ninety minutes are worth the price of admission, especially if you can see Novocaine with a large theater audience ready to laugh and wince (often simultaneously).
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Novocaine opens in theaters on Friday, March 14th.
