Novocaine is a totally confounding movie that is surprisingly easy to describe. It’s an entertaining yet bad film. Not bad in the “intentional B-schlock fun” way either. Bad as in, “This is not good.” How can both of those things possibly be true? How can a movie I found entertaining also stink? Because while almost every individual scene is good (and star Jack Quaid is very, very good) none of those scene go together. Novocaine is a mishmash of multiple genres that don’t work together. The result is a movie that has no idea what it is, what it wants to do, or why it’s doing anything.
The trailer for Novocaine indicates it’s an action-comedy, and there are definitely times when that’s exactly what it is. But the film’s first 15 minutes present a very serious, interesting, well-done drama about pain and the scars we carry with us. That’s because the movie meaningfully reflects on its premise. It follows Jack Quaid’s Nate Caine, a man who literally cannot feel any physical pain because of a genetic condition. His painless existence is incredibly painful. He’s isolated from almost everyone and most things. He can’t even eat real food. His outlooks finally seem to change for him when he meets the proverbial “girl of his dreams,” Sherry, played by Prey‘s Amber Midthunder. She’s also very good in the film.
Their budding relationship quickly turns the movie into more of a rom-com, and I liked that as well. I would have loved if Novocaine had continued being about them.
Then the movie suddenly turns into Heat. Not “funny Heat.” Novocaine just straight up becomes a deadly heist film with all the gravity of a Michael Mann movie. It’s… really good. There’s an intense bank robbery sequence that is really well done. It’s also really jarring and nonsensical. Within 30 minutes you get three distinct genres, but none of them are in conversation with one another. This isn’t a harmonious stew of concepts blending together. It’s a plate of food where no part of the meal makes sense with the other. Novocaine is like getting served tuna fish with pistachio pudding and brie. You can enjoy each of them separately, but not in the same bite.
Then things get even weirder when Novocaine finally gets to its promise of being an action-comedy, but even then it can’t settle on one tone. At times it plays like an absurdist comedy. Other scenes are more of a black comedy. And some feature more of a traditional style of humor. Those violent shifts in tone, even among the movie’s comedic elements, results in a dizzying whiplash.
The only constant in the movie is also its best asset, Quaid. It’s easy to see why directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen wanted him. Nate shares a lot of the same qualities as Quaid’s Hughie on The Boys. They’re both kind, unassuming, normal guys who find themselves in an absurd situation. (In this case, that happens when Nate goes after the bank robbers to save Sherry. This seat-of-his-pants plan requires him to use his genetic condition like a super power, resulting in a lot of the movie’s physical humor.)
Nate is not just Hughie in a different story, though. Quaid really makes Nate his own. He’s softer, sad in a different way, and also has the kind of aloof detachment that feels natural after a life locked away from danger. Despite the two characters obvious similarities I did not think about The Boys once during the movie. Quaid loses himself in the part in an immensely impressive leading performance.
While the disparate genres and roller coaster tones don’t work in the film, it at least provides Quaid a chance to show off his range. He pulls all of the different genres off effortlessly. He’s tremendous when Novocaine is a drama, when it’s a rom-com, when it’s a heist thriller, when it’s an action movie, and when its one of three or four different comedies. Without his performance the film might be totally unwatchable. With him every scene is entertaining and interesting.
It’s just too bad all of those scenes combine for an incoherent, unsatisfying mess. Novocaine doesn’t know what it is. It’s not clear it has a purpose. It just felt like doing a bunch of stuff regardless of whether or not those things made sense. It’s the epitome of the saying, “The whole is less than the sum of its parts.”
So while it is not a wholly painful movie experience, it sure doesn’t feel that good on the whole either.
Novocaine premieres March 14, 2025.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He can feel pain, especially emotional pain, so be nice in the comments section. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.