NOVOCAINE (2025)
Starring Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Jacob Batalon, Betty Gabriel, Matt Walsh, Conrad Kemp, Evan Hengst, Craig Jackson, Lou Beatty Jr., Garth Collins, Tristan de Beer, Jessica Stanley, Chioma Umeala, Margot Wood, Dylan Skews, Keeno Lee Hector, Maria Vos, Dominique Maher, DeVille Vannik, Lance Elliott, Motsi Tekateka and Toni Erasmus.
Screenplay by Lars Jacobson.
Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen.
Distributed by Paramount Pictures. 110 minutes. Rated R.
If a movie comes up with an extremely clever – if slightly obscure – concept, and then can’t play by the rules it sets up itself, you have a problem going in. Novocaine is one of those movies where the more you learn about what is happening and why, the less sense it makes. And the less you really care.
Jack Quaid (star of The Boys, son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan) plays Nathan Caine, a mild-mannered outcast bank manager who has one odd physical quirk – he cannot feel pain of any kind. His body simply has never had any pain receptors. Because of this, since he was a young boy, he has been called Novocaine by the other kids and all other people in his life. (Honestly, that seems like a bit of overly pithy wordplay to have been created by a bunch of 11-year-old boys, but okay….)
The thing is, though, even though he feels no pain, it doesn’t mean that he can’t be badly hurt or killed. In fact, there is a reason that the body feels pain – to warn you something is wrong. Nathan doesn’t have these warnings, but he still can be handicapped or slain. The film explains early on that his lack of pain is a mine field for Nathan, he has to be on constant alert for simple things most people take for granted, like simply not biting his tongue off while eating.
And when he is thrown into the action of the film – trying to save Sherry (Amber Midthunder), the woman he is crushing on, after she is taken hostage during a violent bank robbery – Nathan is nearly constantly injured and maimed in ways that should destroy him. Instead, he just shrugs, shakes it off and keeps going, barely slowed down by what should be some mortal injuries.
Did the filmmakers forget the guidelines that they created?
The funny thing is, for a big, dumb, constantly moving action movie, Novocaine actually starts out in a rather calm, somewhat intriguing manner. For a little while at least, as we are getting to know Nathan and he is starting to fall for Sherry, the film has a bit of soul and depth.
We don’t totally buy into Nathan’s weird personal life. He is madly, passionately, devotedly in love with a woman he just barely knows. He has never even physically met his only friend, a computer gamer (Jacob Batalon) who he only knew through their shared video quests. And frankly, he’s much too smart and handsome to be such a complete pariah, even with his weird condition. Still, we want to know more about what makes Nathan tick.
At least until the film forgets about giving him any dimensions other than turning him into a computer game avatar. In fact, it appears that Novocaine is trying to make a bigger point that Nathan is able to survive horrific fights and terrible injuries because he has learned from gaming. However, the movie does not seem to bother to truly make show this in any but the most superficial of ways.
The film also for some reason makes the action happen during the Christmas season and quickly drop that ball, too. Let’s face it, in future years there will be no Die Hard-like arguments as to whether Novocaine is an action film or a Christmas film. (And, for the record, Die Hard is not a Christmas film, it’s just an action film which takes place during the holidays.)
None of the crazed, pinballing action starts until about a half-hour into the film, at which point all of the thoughtfulness and characterizations of the film are run down by the constant cartoonish motion of the plot. The further that Novocaine goes along, the dumber it gets.
Beyond the non-stop action, Novocaine also luxuriates in gory extremes. It seems because he can’t feel anything that the filmmakers feel the need to push the envelope in injuries – sticking his hand into a working deep frier to grab a gun, or having him regularly shot, pounded and tortured by the bad guys. There is even a house which is booby-trapped as if this were a Home Alone movie. I am not a squeamish person, but even I had to look away from the screen on several occasions.
The title of the film fits, though. Eventually, the hyperactive fighting and violence thrown at you in Novocaine makes you go numb as a viewer.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: March 13, 2025.
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