Novocaine, an ambling action-comedy built around a man who can't feel pain, is a film that desperately wants you to feel something. It tries to get you to do so by throwing all it can at the wall. There is humor, romance and fights, all of which are delivered by a largely winning cast committed to each element in equal measure. Unfortunately, much like the film's plucky central character, no matter what it puts you through, there is always a numbing sense of emptiness to it. It's a film that merely goes through the action motions with only minimal bursts of flair and an oddly formulaic structure. Despite the boundless potential of its premise that it always feels right on the cusp of fully capitalizing on, it's a film that just keeps plodding along while the brittle bones it's built upon break into more and more pieces until it ultimately crumbles before you.
This all centers on the sufficiently charismatic Jack Quaid, the son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan who got his breakout in the satirical superhero series The Boys. He plays lonely assistant bank manager Nathan Caine, also known as "Novocaine." He got the nickname because he doesn't feel pain. However, this is not some sort of "superpower," but something dangerous for Nate. His bones can still be broken, internal organs damaged and body severely burned. Nate is not invincible, but actually incredibly vulnerable as pain exists for a reason — it's to ensure we know something bad is happening to us so we can hopefully stop it before we suffer irreparable damage or death.
We get introduced to how Nate navigates this life in a cheeky, though tragic, opening montage where we see the caution he takes in all facets of his life and how it has bled into his personal life as well. He wakes up, takes a shower at a set temperature that he has marked, eats only liquid meals for fear he may bite his tongue off, goes to work, comes home, plays video games, and that's it. This all changes when he goes out with Sherry (played by an underutilized Amber Midthunder of the excellent recent Prey) who has recently started working as a teller at his bank. They have a somehow both hurried and belabored meet-cute that is then upended when the bank is robbed by a group of armed men in Santa suits and she is taken hostage. Nate decides he'll go after the robbers and bring Sherry back, no matter the damage done to his body in the process.
As directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, who previously made the underrated recent Pacific Northwest-set sci-fi horror Significant Other, the film most struggles when it comes to the action. While the camera occasionally gets thrown around with Nate as he is beat up, recalling the similar though superior 2018 film Upgrade, there is a disappointing lack of kinetic stunt performances. We just pop into a place where Nate is going to get info, he gets beat up, finds a way to use his condition to his advantage, and then goes to the next. A brief throwaway reference to Looney Tunes when he is about to go to a house with booby traps only makes the subsequent scene feel that much more flat as it lacks the cartoonish visual language necessary to leave a mark. There are a few more fun gory moments, especially with a broken bone in the end, but it is a mostly tame and forgettable action riff without the needed technical chops to back any of it up.
The obvious twists it throws in, and some more seemingly serious attempts at emotion, don't do the film any favors either. They drag down what could have been a more audacious dark comedy into being more broadly scattered in execution. Novocaine is a film that takes great pains to keep things moving — including in a ludicrous, laborious conclusion — yet never has earned fun reveling in the journey to get there. Nate may finally feel something, but we as the audience never fully do.
Novocaine
Rated R
Directed by Dan Berk & Robert Olsen
Starring Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder
