I have this rule, a mental one that I don’t think I have ever really shared before, that says you should be very wary of any movie that only seems to have one trailer. Trailers are just ads for the movie, but if there’s only one that goes months out before the movie opens, is that because those are the only scenes in the movie worth seeing? It’s just not a good sign, and going off the Rotten Tomatoes score of Love Hurts, which did had a great trailer, then it might not be that bad a rule. And yet, Novocaine only had one trailer, and it was also a good trailer.
Then again, I could be wrong, and it was a really good trailer.
Nathan Caine (Jack, son of Dennis, Quaid) is the assistant manager of a San Diego credit union who lives an incredibly cautious life. An extreme introvert, his only friend is Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), a fellow he plays online video games with and has never met in person. It turns out there is a very good reason for that: Nathan has this rare genetic disorder that prevents him from noticing temperature changes or pain. He can injure himself in all kinds of ways, and he will never notice. As such, he goes to extreme lengths to avoid any sort of injury, even to the point where he won’t eat solid food to ensure he doesn’t unknowingly bite his own tongue off.
That starts to change when Nathan goes out to lunch with new co-worker Sherry (Amber Midthunder), a lively gal he’s had his eye on for a while. The two really hit it off, to the point where Nathan is thinking she could be the woman he’s been waiting to meet for his entire life. But then the worst happens when their place of employment is robbed by a trio of criminals dressed like Santa Claus. During the robbery, multiple people are shot, some killed, and Sherry is taken hostage by the crooks, led by Simon (Ray, son of Jack, Nicholson). Due to a wide variety of reasons, Nathan realizes the only one who can rescue Sherry is himself, so he swipes a downed cop’s gun and a car and goes after them. Nathan doesn’t know how to fight or anything, but he can’t feel pain no matter how injured he gets. Will that be enough?
Let’s make one thing very clear before I go any further: there is absolutely nothing surprising to this movie. If you are well-versed in action-comedies, and you’ve seen the trailer, you basically know how this movie is going to go. It’s formulaic, and the closest the movie has to a surprise really isn’t. That said, this movie is actually a lot of fun. Yes, I knew more or less exactly where it was going at all times. Yes, it’s following a formula. Yes, the trailer gave away almost everything. And yet, it was a really charming movie, fleshing out the ideas of the trailer to make the characters more interesting and generally adding to the fun. I don’t feel much surprise when Wile E. Coyote falls off a cliff, but I still think it’s funny. Likewise, the movie isn’t pretending Nathan is unkillable. He just doesn’t notice how badly he’s hurt when he does get hurt, and he gets hurt quite a bit.
It helps that the character of Nathan Caine might have been written with Jack Quaid in mind, and even if it wasn’t, his general screen persona really fits into the role. Quaid generally plays a certain sort of bumbling doofus pretty well, and the big question is whether or not his bumbling is endearing or creepy. This is his second movie of the year, and he’s turned up as two different characters that have that somewhat awkward energy that he uses to well. As far as Novocaine goes, whether the role was written for Quaid or not, he owns the role and turns what might have been a somewhat rote turn as a guy with an odd condition that isn’t really a superpower, but he uses it as one anyway, sort of. I might have seen everything coming before it happened, but it was still a fun ride to get there.
Grade: B+
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