Novocaine

4 outta 5

Novocaine is actually a sweet love story wrapped in ultraviolence. The chemistry between the leads is very electric and then that turns into a ton of crazy action scenes. With a weird high concept hook, it gives the movie free license to have some very over the top action as the hero can take a beating and keep on ticking. While a lot of action movies just tend to pretend that the hero is impervious to pain, here the hero can literally not feel pain which is why it can go nuts. It is a goofy concept, but it lets the action be bonkers which gives Novocaine its charm.

Nate (Jack Quaid) is a bank manager who has a rare disorder that makes it so he can’t feel pain. He has to be careful as he can constantly poke or burn himself and not notice and have all his food blended because he could accidentally bite off his tongue, and he has an alarm go off every 3 hours reminding him to urinate or else his bladder could explode. Unexpectedly, a co-worker, Sherry (Amber Midthunder) strikes up a relationship with him. But things go badly when a bunch of goons led by Simon (Ray Nicholson) break into their bank, shoot the boss, steal a bunch of cash and kidnap Sherry. Now Nate must use his powers of not feeling any pain to track down the bad guys, with his only assistance coming remotely by his gamer friend, Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), all while Nate is being tracked by two grizzled cops, Duffy (Matt Walsh) and Langston (Betty Gabriel). But all he has to go on are thin clues which leads to more violence, and Sherry is in deep trouble.

Quaid is very good at hollering and going manic but also at being a meek and introverted nerd. Sometimes his nerd characters turn out to be psychos like in Companion or Scream but here Nate is downright likable. His condition where he can’t feel pain is weird but there is some decent character stuff where he explains how potentially damaging it can be. A run in he has with a childhood bully makes him bring up how he says they used to beat him constantly as he couldn’t feel it, earning him the derivative nickname of Novocaine. This does lead to a fun and heartfelt moment when Sherry helps him get back at the bully.  

His condition is basically another way to do superpowers and the results are hilariously gory as Nate is completely oblivious to whatever injuries he has sustained. There are lots of gnarly action bits, like when he is shot by a hidden crossbow and uses the arrow sticking out of his leg to take out a bad guy. Also, where Nate is being tortured as he fake screams in pain to stall for time as he waits for his friend to arrive. The best bit is how overtly fake his screams are while he keeps stealing glances at his watch or doorway, waiting for a save.

Midthunder is really quite charming as the girl of his dreams who Nate falls for, a whole bunch of the movie’s first twenty minutes is entirely about them. She seems sweet, has some very fun reactions when she finds out about Nate’s condition, and when she is involved in some interesting plot twists after she is kidnapped, it hits hard for Nate. Also she does some action in the third act which is great because Midthunder has displayed some serious action chops in Prey and Legion. Her being a mostly normal love interest is kind of outside her usual badass roles. Batalon is using his Ned from Spider-Man energy here as yet another “guy in the chair” sidekick with funny little asides. And when he shows up to save Nate from torture by throwing a knife at him it is one of the movie’s best gags.

As the head goon, Nicholson not only murders innocent bank managers in cold blood but is pretty giddy about it, and when he gets to drop some harsh truth on Nate at the end, he revels in being cruel. Gabriel and Walsh both enliven the standard exposition cop role, with some really funny lines like Walsh’s cop Duffy making a crack about a bad day to quit drinking. He didn’t quit; it would have just been a bad day. Very corny but funny. And the cops have a fun moment when Duffy says Nate wouldn’t be stupid enough to answer his cellphone, so Langston calls him and he picks up, and Duffy is shown digging out some cash to pay off the bet.

The biggest draw of Novocaine is the funny action and splatter. A fight Nate gets into with a big burly guy gets really intense with him eventually getting glass in his fists to fight back. Or when Nate sets off every trap in a booby-trapped house and is just annoyed at the damage he is taking. The finale brawl between Nate and Simon is jaw-droppingly brutal with snapped bones sticking out by the end. But through it all, as Nate can’t feel any of it, he is kind of cheerfully going along as a pin cushion. Novocaine is a unique, messy, funny, and oddly kind of heartwarming, action ride.