By Tim Estiloz
“Novocaine” is a truly fun action comedy that puts a novel spin on the often used plot line of a nerdy normal guy thrust into an extremely abnormal dangerous situation. Mild-mannered assistant bank manager Nathan Caine ( played by Jack Quaid ) lives a rather solitary and mundane life on the job and in his daily private life. He spends much of his workday pining away for the pretty new bank teller Sherry (Amber Midthunder) and his nights at home playing remote video games with his friend Roscoe, who he’s never met face-to-face before.
Nathan is extremely careful to not upset the apple cart, as they say; nor spill hot coffee on himself, nor accidentally bang into furniture, or even eat solid food as a rule. The reason for all this extreme caution is because Nathan was born with a genetic condition that makes him unable to feel pain. (An actual condition, by the way, called Congenital Analgesia if you want to Google it.)
Nathan takes special care in everything he does to avoid an accidental serious injury that he wouldn’t feel or even notice at all until it’s too late. He covers the sharp corners of his desk with tennis balls, he drives at a careful snail’s pace and he eats only liquids because he might accidentally bite his tongue off chewing solid food, swallow it and never know it.
Eventually, Sherry coaxes him into going on a date and the two hit it off marvelously. Their chemistry seems perfect and they spend the night together. Apparently, as they both discover, Nathan’s pain-free condition doesn’t affect his pleasure receptors.
Next day, Nathan is a new confident man at work… and, he’s head over heels in love.
But, at the office, just as Nathan approaches Sherry to swoon over their big night together; a trio of bank robbers storm in killing the bank manager plus several police officers and escape by taking Sherry hostage. Love-struck Nathan throws his normally consistent caution to the wind and begins to pursue the robbers in a nearby vacated police cruiser to rescue Sherry.
Meanwhile, Nathan is being pursued by a pair of detectives (Betty Gabriel of “Get Out” and Matt Walsh) who suspect Nathan was in on the heist from the beginning; but gradually begin to question that theory.
What follows is a fast-paced pursuit with Nathan chasing the robbers to different locales and the cops chasing Nathan and his suspected accomplices.
What makes this action comedy so uniquely effective is the comedic skills of its lead actor, Jack Quaid as he encounters all manner of wince-inducing injuries while pursuing and battling the bad guys. His inability to feel pain comes in quite handy as he’s bruised, battered, burned, bloodied and more in a variety of ultra-violent encounters while trying to save his new lady love.
But make no mistake, Nathan is no self-confident, invulnerable Superman blithely walking through these bloody battles. He’s as shocked as the bad guys to see the lengths of endurance his body is able to withstand. One minute, he’s reaching into a pan full of scalding hot frying oil to retrieve a pistol while fighting off one of the robbers; the next, he’s performing some frightening first aid on himself using hardware pliers to pull out a bullet from his arm and super-glues the wound closed without feeling a thing.
As icky as this all sounds, Quaid mines some moments of pure comedic gold from this non-stop barrage of otherwise excruciating painful abuse to himself. One of the best moments like this is when one of the bad guys decides to torture Nathan before knocking him off by pulling out his fingernails. However, since Nathan has no idea what pain feels like; he has to try and ineptly fake that he’s hurting horrifically with hilarious results, confounding his would-be “torturer” no end.
Actress Amber Midthunder, who was so spectacular in the “Predator” film franchise sequel “Prey”, is another valuable asset to making this offbeat film work so well. She has a wonderfully charismatic presence and chemistry with Quaid during the first part of “Novocaine”. Their scenes together have a genuine sweetness as they portray two lonely people finally encountering their soul mate. It’s a testament to her acting skills of misdirection when the audience later discovers Shelley may not be all she appears.
Jacob Batalon, from the Tom Holland series of Spider-Man movies, shows up later as Nathan’s mysterious video game friend to reluctantly lend him a hand when things get a bit more than Nathan can handle.
“Novocaine” overcomes its pretty thin premise with some truly appealing lead characters; as well as its deft hilarious staging of otherwise cringe-inducing bloody ultra-violence.
You’ll hurt so good from trying out this very funny film.