Novocaine – Dir: Dan Bert & Robert Olsen (13th Floor Film Review)
To say that a film moves at breakneck pace is an overworked trope, but this movie really earns the accolade.
Starring: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Betty Gabriel, Matt Walsh, Lou Beatty Jr., Van Hengst, Conrad Kemp and Jacob Batalon
Only “breakneck, arms, fingers and legs pace” would be a more accurate description.
Directors Dan Bert and Robert Olsen (Villains and Significant Other) have created a clever twist on the boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy endures multiple trials attempting to get girl back genre.
The underlying premise of the film is deceptively simple. Mild mannered bank employee Nathan Caine is afflicted (or perhaps less afflicted than gifted) with a rare genetic condition that renders him impervious to physical pain and earned him the nickname “Novocaine” courtesy of his slimy high school nemesis.
Although, as love interest Sherry (the gorgeously named Amber Midthunder) points out, as nickname’s go, it is more super cool than super freak.
What really makes Novacaine a pulse pounding adrenaline rush, and really good fun to boot, is the way that Bert and Olsen use that pain free premise as a springboard for showcasing exactly how much punishment one man’s body can take and still remain (mostly) functional whilst attempting to rescue his brand new girlfriend from a group of bank robbers turned kidnappers.
As the son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, Jack Quaid may well be the consummate nepo baby, but it is hard to hold that against him when he is so utterly adorable in the role of an everyman with a genetic superpower who is most certainly NOT a superhero.
Quaid and Midthunder have a charming and believable chemistry that initially lulls you into thinking that you are going to be watching a sweet natured rom com and then unleashes hell in the form of some of the most graphic abuse of the human body committed to celluloid since The Substance made us all collectively hide behind our hands while trying not to toss our cookies.
At the screening that I attended the shouts of “Nooooooo” and “Ewwwwww” rang throughout the theatre as the action ramped up to fever pitch.
I won’t say that’s all done in the best possible taste, but I will say that it is the most fun I have had at the cinema in a long time and could very well be a strong contender for the best date movie of 2025…and it’s only March!
Jo Barry
Novocaine is in cinemas April 3rd. Click here for tickets and showtimes.
