Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Starring: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Jacob Batalon
Where to watch: Prime Video
To watch or not to watch: It has only one joke, but it plays it well!!! A high dose of entertainment for all action movie lovers
Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) works as an Assistant Manager at a local bank, leads a simple, quiet life, has an unassuming personality, and has a crush on the teller by the name of Sherry (Amber Midthunder) who has the opposite personality of Nathan, being extroverted, a spitfire and full of spark. One day, some lowlives decide to rob the bank, and kidnap Sherry. Nathan being a one-woman-man, has ro rescue his woman from the thugs, even though they are not a real couple. But unbeknownst to people at large, Nathan has a superpower – he doesn’t feel pain. At all. Not even the bladder sensation to pee, or biting tongue while chewing, for example, which means that he has led most of his life sheltered and limited. Now with the love of his life (even if it was only one date) being kidnapped, the curse he has led most of his life threatening his very existence becomes his power where he can fight the bad guys without restraint (luckily he has some good fighting skills without ever learning them). So, that’s what happens – Nathan Caine, aka Novocaine to his bullies, becomes the knight in a bloody body armour to rescue his princess.
It is a good movie, it is fun, it doesn’t take itself seriously, and neither should you. It is a typical light-hearted movie where the trope is the underdog becoming a hero. That’s it. That’s the review.
Well, the last part can be explained a bit more. There are multiple moments where the plot is only a hole, where the cringe is high and gore is more. But then again, it did not promise to be a high intensity thriller with morals and takeaways. It is a plain and simple action comedy, which is hastily thrown together to make it a quasi-cohesive movie which delivers on entertainment. There is much to be said about self-awareness in the movie making world and it is almost always a positive character trait.
It is fun to see Quaid in a The Boys+Punisher mash-up of a role. He is good at it, and after The Boys, it is easier to see him in movies where things blow up and there is blood and gore. Maybe we are seeing him too much in this genre? He is a decent actor by all accounts, his role in The boys is nothing to sneeze at, and maybe because of the success of the series, he is not getting any other scripts? This is of course, only conjecture, unless Jack Quaid himself comments on the website (wishful thinking). This is only to say that he has potential to be more than one role, one character typecast into this. It will be fun for us, but maybe not so fulfilling for an actor of his calibre. Watch Novocaine on a movie night with a bunch of friends and have fun!
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