Overview
When the girl of his dreams is kidnapped, everyman Nate turns his inability to feel pain into an unexpected strength in his fight to get her back.
Nathan Caine, played by Jack Quaid, suffers from a medical condition that means that he cannot feel pain. Whilst others would see this as a weird special super-power, the reality has left him a reclusive introvert, who must protect himself at all times from an accidental unknown injury – including never eating solid foods. So he balances his simple job at a trust credit union in San Diego with sitting isolated in his apartment playing video games with his online friend. But when he discovers that a co-worker, Sherry (Amber Midthunder) has taken a shine to him, it is the start of a series of events that will shake up Nathan’s life forever – and put it all at risk.
My initial interest in this was due to it coming from the same pairing, Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, who delivered Villains in 2019. Adding the always likable Jack Quaid into the mix was just a bonus, and the trailer did enough to sell me on it being a brutally fun slice of entertainment – and that’s precisely what it is.
The writing is sharp, and the action is slick and bone-jarringly over the top at times (for all the right reasons), but on top of the visual fun on display there is a fun little rom-com element going on between Quaid and Midthunder, which the pair imbue with a perfect chemistry that ensures you root for them throughout as the chaos erupts around them. That chaos is a bank robbery that results in Sherry being taken hostage, leading to Nathan risking everything to get her back.
There are surprises along the way, none of which are particularly original. Indeed, we’ve seen a lot of this before (albeit not with a hero who can’t feel pain), but familiarity doesn’t breed contempt when the whole thing is this much fun. Jacob Batalon pops up at the midpoint and brings just enough additional fun dynamic to aid the film in the latter half, where it could have suffered from the barrage of brutality on offer. Oh, and yes the action is not for the squeamish, even when the bone crunching on display is played for comedic effect, don’t expect the effects to look comedic!
Novocaine delivered pretty much what I expected, and indeed wanted, and sometimes a dumb, fun, action film is just what you need to take your own pain away.