NOVOCAINE (2025) - Mark Reviews Movies

Novocaine, Paramount Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 13, 2025

With a genetic disorder that makes him incapable of feeling pain, Nate (Jack Quaid) has lived a sheltered, uneventful life. Obviously, that way of life is going change at a certain point in Novocaine, and once it does, directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen's comedic thriller finds new and increasingly unsettling ways to put Nate's body through the wringer, although he doesn't actually notice.

The whole thing is admittedly questionable, because Nate has an actual congenital disorder, but the directors and screenwriter Lars Jacobson smartly sidestep the idea that they think Nate's condition is some kind of joke. He might not feel pain, but we quickly come to like the guy so much that we kind of feel it by proxy.

Much of that comes down to Quaid's performance, which is charming in an aw-shucks kind of way that might feel phony or corny coming from some actors. His Nate, though, is just an ordinary guy at his core, who would like to do more than consist of a liquid diet (out of fear of biting his tongue and not noticing), sit around his apartment (where all the edges are cushioned with cut-up tennis balls), and have a boring, paper-pushing job at a bank (where he doesn't go out for after-work drinks with colleagues, because who knows what trouble could come from getting tipsy). The man wants more for his life, but he has learned since childhood that almost any activity could be dangerous and has spent all these years acting accordingly.

The change comes when Sherry (Amber Midthunder), a recently hired teller at the bank where Nate is the assistant manager, asks him out for lunch. She surprises him in the break room with a touch on the back, leading him to scald his hand with hot coffee, and feeling bad about what she initially believes to be a stained shirt, Sherry wants to make it up to him.

Nate has a crush on her and has had one since she was first hired at the bank, so it's easy enough for him to tell Sherry everything about his life and condition when she shows just a little, genuine interest. The film will eventually be filled with lots of fights, chases, and displays of human bodies being injured or devastated in assorted ways, but it's surprising how sweet, tender, and sincere this new romance is played at the top.

Both of these characters have been hurt in the past, tried to get through it to the best of their abilities, and worry about what further harm could come in the future. The filmmakers don't have to give us a connection this intimate and authentic for what the plot will shortly become. Just as we sympathize with Nate for who he has become because of and apart from his condition, however, this brief but consequential depiction of a whirlwind romance gives us a very good reason to understand why Nate puts himself through everything that's about to happen to his body.

The short of it is that the bank is robbed by men dressed as Santa and led by Simon (Ray Nicholson). When the cops arrive early, the robbers take Sherry hostage, and concerned that the police won't get to her in time, Nate borrows a squad car and a police pistol to pursue the thieves.

From there, the guy becomes an accidental and unlikely but, somehow, quite effective action hero. It's not because he's skilled at combat in any way, of course, because a man who has lived his entire life in fear of unknowingly hurting himself isn't exactly going to be trained in any kind of fighting or shooting or the stuff we associate with the heroes of actioners. Nate is simply desperate, lucky, and, obviously, doesn't stop his pursuit of the bad guys and search for Sherry on account of punches to the face, kicks to the body, cuts of assorted severity, gunshot wounds, third-degree burns, and so on and so on.

As a running gag, the repeated and constant assault on Nate's body by goons, weapons, and, in one inventive scene, booby traps is sound but also entirely dependent on two things. The first is the filmmakers' ability to keep and upping the stakes and coming up with distinct injuries inflicted upon Nate—sometimes by and upon himself in order to get the upper hand, such as when he bashes his knuckles into shards of a broken mirror so that his not-so-strong punches can do, well, something. They do that, to be sure, and find plenty of wince-inducing humor in inventing new reasons for Nate to be hurt in novel ways.

The other reason for the success of both the action and the comedy here is, again, Quaid's performance. He never looks, sounds, or behaves like any traditional action hero, so we buy entirely that Nate is somehow stumbling through his adventures by pure dumb luck. The subtle arc of this character through the action, too, is quite amusing, as Nate starts being timid and even apologetic in the face of ruthless, murderous criminals (offering first-aid advice, even, since he is an expert on treating all sorts of wounds). As the character progresses in his hunt and starts realizing he might pull off this improbable mission, he starts to like it in an odd way, and Quaid makes that as funny as Nate's initial awkwardness.

Everything about Novocaine doesn't amount to much more than a gimmick, of course. It is a clever gimmick, though, and, in these hands, executed with humor, unexpected sincerity, and some skill.

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