Novocaine is a high-concept action/comedy with a moderately clever hook: a nice guy who can’t feel pain goes on a violent odyssey to find the woman he loves. Unfortunately, that concept is all it has to distinguish itself. Admittedly, the fight choreography takes amusing advantage of the premise, finding different ways for him to use his condition to his unexpected benefit. Yet the jokes are mostly lame, the story absurdly predictable and the characters totally generic. This is carried by its action scenes and a likable performance from star Jack Quaid. Otherwise, it is pretty dumb and entirely forgettable.
Nathan Caine is a mild-mannered bank assistant manager with a secret: he suffers from a condition that makes him incapable of feeling pain. When his bank is robbed and the criminals take the woman of his dreams hostage, he decides to take it upon himself to rescue her, no matter the risk.
By far the biggest strength of Novocaine (101 minutes, not including the end credits) is its willingness to do horrible things to Nathan’s body for its audience’s enjoyment. It sets up dangerous obstacles, then pays them off with the way he impales or burns or somehow punishes himself physically to save his own life. That stuff is alright and contains a few good gags. The screenplay does a good job of efficiently establishing his feelings for Sherry. It is easy to believe why a quiet, risk-averse, guy would put himself through this. Understanding his drive makes it easier to follow his journey. If only his journey was more fun to go along on.
From the moment he leaves the bank in pursuit of Sherry and her captors, the movie becomes a sort of demented game of Mouse Trap. Every situation is designed as a series of instruments that can be used to harm others. Part of the setup is that Nathan has lived a sheltered life and is unequipped to defend himself against the world, let alone people who want to hurt him. Nobody would expect that stabbing him, shooting him, etc., would give him a means of protecting himself.
I would argue that, for a regular, nonviolent, guy, he’s a little too willing to commit brutal violence though, if he wasn’t, there’s no movie. That didn’t bother me so much. What did is how lazily it moves from scene to scene and how disinterested it seems to be in anything other than how Nathan can be used as a human pincushion.
Nathan is pleasant enough, thanks to Jack Quaid’s everyman charm. It is the rest of the characters that are the problem. Amber Midthunder can also be charming, but Sherry is a blank slate. She only exists so that Nathan can be infatuated with her. Nathan has an ally, a friend he met online, played by Jacob Batalon. Batalon is best known as Peter Parker’s best friend/sometime helper in the MCU Spider-Man franchise. His character here is similar, just more sardonic. The result is pretty irritating. The main villain, the vicious Simon, played by Ray Nicholson, is cruel and murderous, really for no reason, except to give Nathan an evil dragon to slay.
The bottom line is that Novocaine just isn’t very entertaining. Perhaps others will have a lot more fun with the ultraviolent goofiness and won’t care that nothing else here works particularly well. That wasn’t the case for me. While there is some welcome silliness in the premise, it doesn’t hold up in the face of all the flaws.
2 out of 5
Cast:
Jack Quaid as Nathan Caine
Amber Midthunder as Sherry
Ray Nicholson as Simon
Jacob Batalon as Roscoe
Betty Gabriel as Mincy
Matt Walsh as Coltraine
Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen
Written by Lars Jacobson
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