Novocaine

The idea is fun. It's a bit 80s with one foot in the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids swamp and the other in the One Man Army reels. Nate Caine can't feel pain, and it leads to a full day of over-the-top graphic video violence that Seagal himself would be proud of. The film begins with a bank robbery. Nate works as a bank teller, dresses in cheap suits, avoids social interaction in the break room, and maintains his congenital nerve damage with the utmost care as he cannot feel pain and thus has a propensity to hurt himself without realising it. Nate accidentally pours boiling afternoon coffee on his left hand, which suddenly looks like a microwaved taco pie, while he doesn't even notice it - and on that road we travel, during the film's introduction.

But then three trigger-happy gangsters burst into the bank where Nate is hiding, shoot the bank manager in the head and kidnap his colleague Sherry, whom Nate happens to be deeply in love with. Instead of hiding behind his desk (which would be an appropriate action/reaction on Nate Caine's part), the introverted simpleton breaks out of his shell, the caterpillar becomes a butterfly as he sets off in a stolen cop car after the robbers to rescue his fair maiden.

None of this is the least bit original and every exchange, reaction or interaction we have all seen before. Novocaine is basically just a Nobody, Wick or any Statham film repackaged with a little twist. What rescues Novocaine from the swamp of awfulness is clearly The Boys star Jack Quaid who plays the lead role here. The guy undoubtedly possesses a particularly elusive ability to blend reclusive modesty with inner strength and unpredictability which makes his character a fun one. As if on cue, Nate pulls out a glass bottle and hammers it right into the eyes of a hired thug, causing blood to splatter, making this dark action comedy downright hilarious at times. The violence is so incredibly exaggerated at times and so graphically gruesome that it is impossible to stop laughing, not for me anyway.

It's not very good, though. Novocaine breathes B-movie all the way through but I was as bored watching it as I was watching Beekeper, Nobody, John Wick 4 or A Working Man. Instead, I laughed a lot and kept looking forward to the next hilarious torture situation where the blood spurts.