Is there anyone out there who doesn’t like Jack Quaid right now? I mean, I’m sure there is but I do want to meet them. In a relatively short time he’s built a space for himself by playing the everyman, the nice guy, the audience’s avatar, thrust into scenarios that are ridiculously out of whack, such as in The Boys. We like him so much, it’s made his more sinister turns, such as in Scream and Companion, all the more effective. So it’s also good to see him playing the good guy again, someone we want to root for, in the absolutely batsh*t action-comedy Novocaine, an awesome throwback to the gimmick-fueled actioners of the past.
In that mold, Novocaine is like Crank meets Upgrade with an unexpected love story in the middle. Quaid plays Nathan Caine, a mild-mannered bank assistant manager with not much of a life to speak of. There’s a reason for it. Nate has a genetic disorder, congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA), that makes him unable to feel physical pain. Because of that, he had a brutal childhood of being bullied. He can’t eat solid food for fear of biting his own tongue off and not feeling it, so he puts everything into a blender. He even has to set a timer so he knows when to urinate, because he won’t feel the pressure building in his bladder. It also allows for some pretty cool stuff, like being able to give himself crazy tattoos all over his body.
Nate doesn’t get out much, and the impression we get is that he doesn’t have much experience with romance. He’s got a longstanding crush, Sherry, played by Prey breakout Amber Midthunder. She works with him at the bank, and after finally manning up and going out with her on a date, Nate’s entire world is a more beautiful place. Not only is she understanding of his problems, but she’s willing to share her own, which are significant. It’s a sweet rom-com sort of moment when Sherry nudges Nate into eating a slice of pie, the first solid food he can remember. There’s an awe-like wonder to the experience for him, like someone seeing the world with fresh eyes, and of course, Quaid is perfect in making us want to experience that with him.
Once again, Quaid is fixture to a movie that presents as a romance but flips on a dime to become something else. When the bank is robbed the next day by a trio of armed Santas (one played by Smile 2‘s Ray Nicholson, whose devilish grin continues to be terrifying), Sherry is taken away as a hostage. Rather than shirking away from what happened, Nate decides to use his CIPA to his advantage to rescue the woman who has given his life meaning. All of the set up and romantic stuff wasn’t just throwaway killers of time. They help establish Nate’s sheltered existence, and the reason why someone like Sherry is worth fighting for.
It takes a little while, but the wait is worth it when Novocaine kicks into high gear. Nate isn’t a badass. He’s not John Wick or Jason Statham. He’s kindof a dork, and the closest he’s come to combat is playing video games with his online pal, Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), who may or may not (definitely not) look like Jason Momoa. Nate’s inability to fight is exactly what makes Novocaine so much fun…well, that and his inability to feel pain
What directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen do is freshen up a bunch of standard action movie tropes and fight scenes by putting someone like Nate into the mix. The best example is the classic kitchen brawl. Now, for me, there will never be a better one than in The Raid 2. No other contenders, never will be. But Novocaine‘s is pretty goddamn wild, too, because Nate doesn’t have to shy away from that vat of boiling hot grease, or the sizzling fry pan. While his opponent can brutalize Nate all he wants, Nate always has this secret advantage that’s just really cool.
Much of Novocaine plays out like this, with fight scenes elevated by Nate’s gifts and Quaid’s comedic ability. The biggest laughs come from Quaid’s shocked facial expressions when one horrible thing after another happens to him that he can’t feel, like a dagger straight through his hand. Better are when Quaid has to fake feeling pain in order to fool others. All of this stuff just works on every level.
While I was concerned that Midthunder would get lost with a one-note damsel role, Sherry has a lot more going on with her than expected. It’s a definite change of pace for Midthunder to play the love interest, but on the other hand she’s still existing in this heightened reality where violence rules, similar to Prey. In a different world, we could’ve put Midthunder in the protagonist role here and Quaid in the love interest and made a movie just as interesting, if not more so. Both actors have shown they could’ve played opposites just as well.
There’s a lot of really gnarly crap that happens in Novocaine, so it may not be for the weak. The genre fans, the real sickos, are going to eat it up just as I did. It’s maybe a bit too long as the gimmick starts running out of fuel, however Novocaine is too much of a blast to leave anyone feeling numb.
Novocaine opens in theaters on March 14th from Paramount Pictures.
