With John Wick perhaps gone for good (at least if Keanu Reeves has anything to say about it), we are now in the era of unexpected action stars. We’ve seen Bob Odenkirk and Ke Huy Quan take their affable, everyman personas and become action powerhouses (in 2021’s Nobody and this year’s Love Hurts, respectively). While we still have the go-to traditional action stars of today — hi, Jason Statham! — there’s a new area of opportunity to mine. Welcome to the club, Novocaine.
Jack Quaid, fresh off another genre-mixing movie (the sci-fi/horror flick Companion), brings his boy-next-door charm to the role of Nathan Caine, an anxious ᴀssistant manager at a bank who seems to live a fairly dull and dreary life. We first meet him glumly going about his morning routine while R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” plays, effectively setting the tone for Nate’s current emotional state. He has a neurological disorder that prevents him from feeling any kind of pain, or things like H๏τ and cold. Seems like a dream, but as Nate soon reveals, it’s led to him adopting a very solitary existence.
As often happens in movies, everything changes when love enters the picture. For months, Nate’s been pining after Sherry (Amber Midthunder), a co-worker at his bank, and a spilled coffee pot leads to them going on a lunch date that turns into possibly the best night of Nate’s life. Suddenly, he’s got a sunny outlook on life and pushing the boundaries of his disorder. And then, Sherry’s taken hostage by a trio of violent bank robbers.
Jack Quaid Lets Loose In Novocaine
And He Absolutely Kills It
Directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen take great care to show us how careful Nate is when it comes to his disorder. Every sharp edge in his home and office has a tennis ball covering it, and he refrains from eating solid food out of fear he’ll accidentally bite his tongue off without knowing. He’s spent his life being overly cautious, but it takes one evening with Sherry for him to put everything he knows aside. When she’s hauled off by the goons led by Ray Nicholson’s Simon, Nate doesn’t hesitate for too long before stealing a cop car and chasing after them.
This abrupt turn would feel very jarring and unrealistic in potentially any other movie. However, Berk and Olsen have given Novocaine a giddy, heightened energy that makes all the absurdities of the plot fall away. Nate’s on quite the journey, and we’re all too happy to go along with him. It helps that Quaid and Midthunder have a sweet chemistry, and that Nate and Sherry’s initial date works to deepen both their characters; we can understand why Nate would be so eager to go after her, even at the risk of his own life.
A lot of the credit for that goes to Quaid, who fully cements himself as a leading man by deftly intertwining Nate’s polite, awkward demeanor with his growing determination to save Sherry at all costs.
Due to his inability to feel any pain, Nate has a major advantage. A gun falls into a vat of boiling oil? No problem, he can grab it while the bad guy he’s fighting will back off. Leg suddenly impaled by an arrow? Whatever, he’ll just shuffle awkwardly around until he can get it out. It makes for a unique action-movie hook, and Novocaine plays it up to its highest potential. This is true when it comes to both humor and stakes. With the latter, the movie doesn’t forget that no pain doesn’t mean Nate’s invincible.
As for the humor, I had some concerns the Novocaine trailer had revealed the funniest moments and ruined some of the charm of Quaid’s performance. Thankfully, that isn’t the case, making for a genuinely hilarious movie that had the audience in my theater positively cackling. A lot of the credit for that goes to Quaid, who fully cements himself as a leading man by deftly intertwining Nate’s polite, awkward demeanor with his growing determination to save Sherry at all costs. His comedic timing is on point the whole time.
Add In A Great Supporting Cast & Novocaine Is A Winner
Not Even A Few Bumps Can Change That
Novocaine really is Quaid’s show, but every supporting star gets a chance to shine. Midthunder, already an action star of her own thanks to Prey, reaffirms she is far from a damsel in distress and makes Sherry’s resilience — for better or worse — her defining feature, elevating a role that could’ve been underwritten. Jacob Batalon, though again playing sidekick to a nerdy hero after his time in the MCU’s Spider-Man movies, emphasizes his strength as a comedic actor.
Even the two detectives hunting down Nate make an impression, even though they could’ve fit very awkwardly into the plot. With just a few scenes and some excellent one-liners, Matt Walsh and Betty Gabriel up the humor and the emotional stakes. Novocaine‘s well-rounded ensemble only serves to elevate the material even more. A fair bit of the plot and action scenes rest solely on the hook of Nate not feeling any pain, but the execution of this premise is so much fun that I don’t see the point in trying to poke major holes in it.
Screenwriter Lars Jacobson has some additional surprises in store, but I won’t dare spoil them here. Suffice to say, Novocaine takes you on a rollicking adventure that, once it begins after Sherry’s abduction, doesn’t really let up. Sure, there’s some tonal awkwardness with the actual bank heist scene — it’s far more distressing than anything else in the movie — but between the humor and Quaid’s performance, there’s so much fun to be had here that it’s easy to just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Novocaine is 110 minutes long and rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, and language throughout.
