I’m always shocked to see how many movies are based on true story accounts or novels that I’ve never heard of.
But, I more than welcome anything new and outside of the normal fare that’s regularly circulating in theaters at this time of year.
The action comedy film “Novocaine” definitely isn’t a kid-friendly movie, but the fact that I found myself torn between laughing and wincing at the damages, the main character kept me invested in the film all the way to the end.
Kudos to the director for keeping my interest in the entire film not just to see how wild the situations are that this unfortunate main character survives.
Novocaine is an American action comedy film directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen and written by Lars Jacobson.
The film stars Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Betty Gabriel, Matt Walsh, Craig Jackson, Evan Hengst, Garth Collins, and Jacob Batalon.
It’s also rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, and language throughout and clocks in at 110 minutes long.
Nathan Caine (Quaid) is a mild-mannered introvert with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA) working as an assistant manager at a trust credit union in San Diego.
His co-worker Sherry Margrave (Mindhunter) is romantically interested in him, but Nathan is hesitant due to his condition and inexperience with women.
At a bar with Sherry, Nathan runs into his middle school bully, who calls him “Novocaine.”
Sherry gets revenge for Nathan by tricking the bully into drinking a shot of Ghost Pepper hot sauce; the two then spend the night together.
The next morning, on Christmas Eve, a gang of robbers dressed up in Santa suits led by Simon Greenly (Nicholson) rob the credit union.
Greenly shoots bank manager Nigel (Jackson) and takes Sherry as a hostage when the group escapes.
Nathan impulsively steals a cop car in pursuit of the car in which Sherry is being held, but he follows the wrong car.
Police detectives Mincy Langston (Gabriel) and her partner Coltraine Duffy (Walsh) are assigned to the robbery case and all of Nathan’s resulting antics.
In a restaurant kitchen, he ends up in a confrontation with another robber, Ben Clark (Hengst).
He eventually shoots Ben dead, but not before severely burning his hand while retrieving Ben’s gun from a deep fryer.
After noting Ben’s tattoo, Nathan asks his only friend Roscoe Dixon (Batalon), a fellow gamer whom he has never met in person, to help him find the artist.
Roscoe successfully tracks down the tattoo to an artist named Zeno (Collins) and gives his address to Nathan who then interrogates him for Ben’s address while hoping to find Sherry.
After a brawl, Nathan manages to get Ben’s last name from Zeno and he calls a colleague to find Ben’s home address using his loan documents.
Unfortunately, Ben’s house is booby-trapped, and Nathan ends up stuck in a snare after getting shot in the thigh by a crossbow and getting hit with a homemade morning star.
Nathan takes even more damage after that and is relentless in his pursuit of Sherry – even at the end of the film.
Overall, I think the movie capitalizes on its chances for darker comedic moments and the timing works wonderfully even though Nathan seems to be having the worst day of his life so far.
