The protagonist feels no pain, but it’s the premise that strains in Novocaine, a high-concept comedy that sets out to fuse slapstick, body horror, and action-adventure into one quivering live wire, without the drive to commit to any of it. One good idea is stretched beyond the breaking point.
That good idea: giving its hero, bank manager Nate (Jack Quaid), a genetic disorder that results in an inability to feel pain. It’s an affliction that has led him to a fairly sheltered life, avoiding scrapes and even consuming nothing but smoothies, lest he chew his own tongue while eating solid food. His personal life is consigned to playing videogames with his virtual pal Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), until the day co-worker Sherry (Amber Midthunder) chats him up, takes him to lunch and even convinces him to eat a piece of pie. After spending the night together, Nate is smitten.
The next day is Christmas Eve, and three robbers dressed like Santa Claus, led by Simon (Ray Nicholson), shoot Nate’s boss, force Nate to reveal the combination to the vault, and take Sherry hostage for good measure. (Audiences are expected to accept that the criminals would wear bright red attention-getting outfits and that a commercial vault would have a simple three-number combination. And that a bank would be open for business on December 24.)
With the San Diego police already stretched thin for the holidays, Nate sets off in pursuit, and what he lacks in experience or ability, he can make up for with his superhuman side-effect: to feel nothing when plunging his hand into boiling oil to retrieve a gun or when taking spikes to the head with a mace after he sets off a booby trap.
There’s a tradition of tongue-in-cheek action movies that put their protagonist through the wringer — Jason Statham perpetually defibrillating himself in the happily frenzied Crank leaps to mind — but films like this work only when all bets are off; anything less than gonzo insanity won’t do justice to the nutty premise. Directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen (Villains) clearly aspire to that level of outrageousness without ever fully committing.
Every so often, the screenplay goes wild with the protagonist’s condition — Nate plucks a bullet out of himself without blinking an eye, later making what he thinks are the requisite sounds of agony when a bad guy rips out two of his fingernails — and Novocaine should ideally zip past without the audience getting the chance to stop and think about how ludicrous it is. Yet at nearly every juncture, the filmmakers display a lack of nerve, exercising restraint precisely when restraint is anathema to their goals. They’re cautious rather than crazed.
Even putting aside a plot twist that any seasoned moviegoer should see coming in the first act, there’s no excuse for Novocaine to be so risk-averse. Editor Christian Wagner (The Suicide Squad) clearly logged some overtime to put some pep in the movie’s step, but the big set pieces are rarely as thrilling as they should be. Quaid, who’s in almost every scene, admirably commits to this character, but he’s too confident a screen presence to earn empathy as a sheltered, mousy, lovestruck hero.
Nicholson’s glinty-eyed villain provides the larger-than-life endorphins that most of the movie lacks, while the talented Betty Gabriel and Matt Walsh do what they can with underwritten and underutilized cop characters. You’d never know how dynamic a performer Midthunder can be in a film that appropriately spotlights her talents, like Prey, given the bystander role to which she’s reduced here.
Apart from the bank robbers’ Santa costumes, the directors and their production designers don’t do anything with the premise of a Christmas heist and chase set in sunny San Diego (and filmed in South Africa). Given the possibilities of festive public holiday décor to provide counterpoint to violent mayhem — see almost any movie written and/or directed by Shane Black — the lack of Yuletide atmosphere represents another missed opportunity.
Nate stabs himself with an epi-pen several times over the course of Novocaine to give himself a rush of adrenaline; would that the filmmakers had extended that same courtesy to the audience.
Directors: Dan Berk & Robert Olsen
Screenwriter: Lars Jacobson
Cast: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Betty Gabriel, Matt Walsh, Lou Beatty Jr., Evan Hengst, Conrad Kemp, Jacob Batalon
Executive producers: Paul Barbeau, Glen Basner, Josh Adler, Lars Jacobson, Alison Cohen, Pete Chiappetta, Isabela Salas, Paul Neinstein
Producers: Drew Simon, Tory Tunnell, Joby Harold, Sam Speiser, Matt Schwartz, Julian Rosenberg
Cinematographer: Jacques Jouffret
Production design: Kara Lindstrom
Editing: Christian Wagner
Music: Lorne Balfe, Andrew Kawczynski
Sound design: Bernard Gariépy Strobl, Bret Killoran, re-recording mixers
Production companies: Paramount Pictures, Infrared Pictures, Domain Entertainment, Safehouse Pictures, Circle Management + Production
In English
110 minutes
