Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: Novocaine

Today's edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post takes a look at a movie that came out earlier this year.  

Novocaine is an American action comedy film starring Jack Quaid as... well, Jack Quaid. Not to underestimate Mr. Quaid's talent but if you're familiar with his work in animation (Star Trek: Lower Decks) or live action (The Boys), you kind of know what you're gonna get. 

And that works just fine for me in Novocaine. I like Jack Quaid. 

Jack Quaid is Nathan Caine, a mild-mannered assistant manager at a credit union in San Diego. 

Nathan has a congenital insensitivity to pain.

Nathan is an introvert who keeps a low profile.  Interacting with people in the real world can be problematic when you can't feel pain. For example, while eating food, he could bite his own tongue off and not feel it.  

But Nathan's shield drops around the super sexy cute bank teller Sherry Margrave (the super sexy cute Amber Midthunder). He really likes her and she seems to like him back. Nathan and Sherry get busy with some sexy time so I guess there's something there. 

But right before Christmas, things take a particularly violent turn when a group of heavily armed thugs dressed in Santa suits raid the credit union. 

The manager gets killed and Nathan capitulates to open the vault before anyone else gets hurt. The thugs take Sherry as a hostage as they escape, slaughtering a bunch of cops on their way out the door. The thugs split up in to getaway cars.  

Nathan steals a police car to persue the robbers to rescue Sherry. 

Nathan catches up the car that does not have Sherry where Nathan winds up in a very violent throw down with one of the robbers. 

Being impervious to pain is not the same as being invulnerable. 

Nathan gets slashed, stabbed, punched and scalded. He can't feel it but he's taking some serious life threatening damage.  

One by one, the robbers die mostly to their own incompetence as well as their failure to realize just who they are dealing with.

Nathan can't feel pain but he feels very strongly about Sherry and will do anything to save her.

SPOILER! Sherry may not need saving. 

She's the sister of one of the bank robbers and she got the job at the credit union to as their inside resource.  She was to weedle the vault code out of Nathan. 

No, man! Don't say that! Nathan really likes her! 

And Sherry it seems wasn't acting and really likes Nathan. She doesn't want to be part of this robbery shit anymore.

Which makes big brother very angry.

So Sherry might still need saving after all.

Let's cut to the end.  Nathan catches up to Sherry and kills the last bank robber but not before nearly killing himself in the process.

One two week medically induced coma later, wrapped in bandages and skin grafts, Nathan survives.  

On Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 177 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Getting an adrenaline shot from Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder's considerable charm while finding increasingly demented ways to utilize its concept, Novocaine is the opposite of a pain to watch."

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Trubube praised Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder's performances, but felt the film ultimately "squandered a promising setup, with an unusually effective depiction of a romance in its first-date stage."

I will concede Novocaine is no great work of high art but Andrea and I were very much entertained and amused (and more than a little grossed out) by the every escalating painful absurdities Nathan Caine has to endure in his quest to save Sherry.  

And a lot of that enjoyment is owed to Jack Quaid. His performance is smart, funny, heroic and hell, I just like the guy.