By Mark Fields
Gross-Out Action Comedy Entertains Despite the Ick and Eww
Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) has a problem, a problem that will eventually turn out to be more of an asset. This character – the central figure in the new comedy Novocaine – has a genetic disorder that means he cannot feel any sensation of pain or discomfort. The malady has (mis)shaped his life up to the point of the start of the movie, turning Nathan into a risk-averse, withdrawn, and lonely young man. When Sherry (Amber Midthunder), his office crush, is kidnapped in a bank robbery gone sideways, however, Nathan is motivated to overcome his past timidity and his physical challenges to become a hero…and perhaps also a multi-count felon (but I digress).
The translation of Nathan from zero to hero is just one of the many improbabilities in Novocaine, but this is not a movie made for narrative coherence or logic. It is, pure and simple, a gross-out comedy. That, it delivers by the bloody bruise full. The plot is a progression of confrontational set pieces that allow the audience to groan and grimace and even occasionally look away as Nathan does damage to himself, oblivious of the consequences. Face punches, serious burns, and even gunshots, all of these Nathan endures while we moviegoers are simultaneously repulsed and yet perversely entertained.
Much of this mayhem works, thanks to the game attitude and charisma of leading man Quaid (yes, in case you’re wondering, the son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan). Despite his good looks and Quaidian smile, he is an accessible and appealing actor who easily wins the audience to his side early in the movie and keeps them there. Quaid is ably supported by Midthunder as his new girlfriend, a winsome tough cookie. Nathan’s misadventures are also aided by his online gaming friend Roscoe (Jacob Batalon). The other featured characters – an array of bank robber bad guys and earnest police detectives – pale in comparison but their only real tasks are to set up the situations for Nathan to get hurt unknowingly.
Director Lars Jacobson, working from a breathless script by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, knows to keep the action moving briskly, so we don’t think too much about the logic holes in the story. And he also manages to depict Nathan’s mounting injuries in a way that makes the audience sympathetically queasy without crossing over into toss-your-cookies territory.
Novocaine is not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it is an entertaining and to-the-point movie that makes the best of its premise and its engaging leading man.
Official Trailer
