Novocaine (2025)

In the '80s and early '90s we had the action movies that are now considered the classic formula.  Usually, a musclebound lead character plows his way through an army or faceless minions to take out the bad guy at the top, with that guy being anything from a ruthless warlord to a corrupt politician using the local thugs to do his dirty work.  They were all of the type and, although we just considered them action films at the time, the pattern is noticeable since they pretty much disappeared by the end of the 1990s.  Before that, and quite noticeable for a particular style, were the action movies of the 1970s, often featuring some sort of major vehicle chase - or two or three - at some point in the film.

The first decade of the 21st century was not known for action movies and, when Hollywood did churn them out, they were noisy, empty, CGI-filled spectacles that were not even fun to watch as popcorn movies.  The feeling one gets when watching a Fast and Furious film or most stuff with The Rock is that is 20 dollars that could have been spent on a decent sandwich instead.  But, as the Oughts rolled on, along came Taken, followed a few years later by John Wick.  Still plenty of CGI, albeit with real stunt work throughout a good portion.  Still not exactly deep, intellectual cinema, but it was as if a switch was flipped and action movies were fun again.  The framework was set for a new style of action film and, more and more, we are seeing the genre taking new shape. 

Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) is the assistant manager at a bank in San Diego, California.  He has a crush on a teller named Sherry (Amber Midthunder) but is afraid to approach her because he has a medical condition where he was born unable to feel pain.  Despite this she seems attracted to him and things develop favorably.  The day after their first date he can't wait to see her, but the unthinkable happens.  A trio of robbers dressed as Santa Claus rob the bank, kill the manager (Craig Jackson) and kidnap Sherry, leading the usually meek Nathan to go after her.

In this case his immunity to pain becomes an advantage.  While not giving him superhuman powers it does allow him to ignore certain situations that would disable a normal person, at least temporarily.  Eventually, while using his weakness as an advantage and skills he learned through banking, he enlists his online gaming friend Roscoe (Jacob Batalon) to help him track down the mastermind behind the operation (Ray Nicholson) and Sherry, while the police are now stuck trying to both find the robbers and stop Nathan from leaving his own trail of destruction. 

Jack Quaid starts off playing a similar character to the he does in The Boys, but things diverge from there.  It's less finding confidence in himself, but more being forced to figure out how to survive.  Like many of the current action films this is based around a specific premise to then figure out how to work the actual sequences around and, though I am sure that in reality he would have been pretty much headed into the light after the first fight in the kitchen with Ben (Evan Hengst), that would not have made for the best of movies.  Lars Jacobsen, the writer of the film, and directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen have stated that even though what happens is not realistic in our world that they made sure the rules within the film's universe are consistent.  They pretty much do, to the point that maybe it's a good thing this movie wasn't a huge draw because we may have kids thinking they'll get superpowers from an Epi-Pen.  

Ray Nicholson is a bit better here than he was in his small role in Smile 2.  He is good in the psycho role without imitating his father, although one has to wonder if he would be getting these roles if it wasn't for dear old dad pulling some strings.  Amber Midthunder is solid during the beginning and the end, just barely skirting the manic pixie dream girl trope, but unfortunately is wasted of a good part of the middle of the film.  Quaid, for his part, has already spent four seasons selling the idea of an action star that is not the typical mix of martial arts and assassin skills as most of them.  Novocaine is also pretty much a comedic take on this genre, and if anything reminds me quite a bit of Guns Akimbo.  

It is mostly enjoyable light action fare that is hindered by a few things.  Some of the shootouts look straight out of Grand Theft Auto V, to the point where there were times when I was thinking of the exact buttons to push.  There are also some attempts to be humorous that fall flat or take one right out of the movie, like the police officer Mincy (Betty Gabriel) mentioning that Caine is going to get off light because he's a white guy that works at a bank.  That is there for no other reason than to get keyboard warriors whining about wokeness, and it works about as well as the "colonizer" line in Black Panther.  But, again, Novocaine pretty much was out of the theaters and on streaming in a short couple of months despite winning its initial weekend.

Still, it's early enough with the new action movies that they are still entertaining and haven't got in the rut that many movies did back in the 1980s.  It is also still refreshing to not see them relying on traditional heroes, but more on the "everyman" that Alfred Hitchcock used to cast in these roles, where similarly they were tasked with surviving against all odds.  It's a trope that's been absent for the better part of close to six decades, so it's no surprise that it has begun to feel fresh again. 

Novocaine (2025)

Time: 110 minutes

Starring: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Jacob Batalon, Betty Gabriel

Directors: Dan Berk, Robert Olsen