{"id":46801,"date":"2025-03-19T00:01:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T04:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=46801"},"modified":"2025-03-19T02:23:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T06:23:26","slug":"novocaine-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/19\/novocaine-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Novocaine (2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nate Caine (Jack Quaid) has a unique condition: he can\u2019t feel physical pain. Fearful of killing himself by accident, he lives a secluded life.That is, until he connects romantically with fellow bank employee Sherry (Amber Midthunder), forcing him out of his self-imposed shell\u2026 and into a bloody path of violence across San Diego to rescue her from kidnapping bank robbers. Using this gimmick, Novocaine offers a fun romp of action-comedy, although not without snags.<\/p>\n

The gimmick is the draw. Novocaine asks the question \u201cWhat fun and creativity can be provided by writer Lars Jacobson when the hapless protagonist can\u2019t feel any of the multitudes of damage done to his body, living up to Dalton\u2019s mantra Roadhouse: \u201cpain don\u2019t hurt\u201d? Additionally, Caine has never been in any sort of confrontational situation before (outside of some middle school beating after the bullies found his condition, also providing the play on his name and title, \u201cNovocaine\u201d), allowing him to blunder through the set-pieces for hilarious turns of violence of all manner (prepare for wincing). I\u2019m a big fan of the accidental hero type, semi-incompetently failing upward through their situations (admit it, our ol\u2019 pal Indiana Jones does fall into this category). There is a joy in watching Quaid become further and further injured as he tears through his quest and the people keeping him from his girl, recalling a feature-length Dean Winters as \u201cMayhem\u201d Allstate commercial. There\u2019s also a similarity of Caine\u2019s situation to the Jason Statham action-comedy hero Chev Chelios.<\/p>\n

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Therein lies the main issue: a strange holding back to the concept. I couldn\u2019t help but compare Novocaine to the Neveldine-Taylor Crank films, also based on character-based devices to build the action and give it an extra oomph. But where those films built on each bit, getting bigger and more insane, directors Dan Berk & Robert Olsen (Villains) have Novocaine simmer along at the same level during its run time. While the action sequences are solid and enjoyable, although without the gimmick perhaps a little standardly executed, across an interesting set of locations: commercial kitchen, tattoo shop, an opening sequence of Indiana Jones booby-trapped home; they could be rearranged in terms of stakes (though not for plot reasons) and largess (all are one-on-ones). The film feels like it wants to break out into something just a little bigger, but doesn\u2019t for whatever reason: budget, action-confidence of the directors, leaning on the concept to draw it through. One can imagine how utterly wild this concept would be if it were Crank 3 instead. For that, Novocaine is a bit of a let down.<\/p>\n

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But, the action-issue potholes are paved over by the sheer watchability of Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder. Berk & Olsen might keep the action at a mid-level, but they rise to giving the film a balance in the characters and their needs, providing charismatic characters you feel for within the situation. For this pair, they have an innate chemistry, and the movie gives them time to breathe as characters before hell breaks loose. It\u2019s been a trend this year to riff on rom-com sensibilities and tropes before turning the genre: Companion, Love Hurts, and Heart Eyes all previously worked the concept, but that doesn\u2019t make it any less enjoyable for Novocaine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nate Caine (Jack Quaid) has a unique condition: he can\u2019t feel physical pain. Fearful of killing himself by accident, he lives a secluded life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,219,259,1087],"class_list":["post-46801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-comedy","tag-dark-comedy","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46805,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46801\/revisions\/46805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}