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LOS ANGELES, March 8 (UPI) -- Novocaine, in theaters Friday, has an inventive action-comedy premise. It lags a bit between the set pieces but never long enough to ruin the fun. Jack Quaid stars as Nathan Caine, a bank manager with a genetic disorder that causes him to feel no pain. He has a stopper on the shower to prevent him from turning the water dangerously hot and puts tennis balls over sharp edges since he wouldn't sense if he bruised himself.
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Nathan's disorder is actually a disability that can lead to life-threatening accidents. He doesn't even eat solid foods for fear of biting his own tongue.
So when Nathan's colleague and new girlfriend Sherry (Amber Midthunder) is taken hostage during a robbery, Nathan gives chase. As he pursues the bank robbers (Ray Nicholson, Conrad Kemp, Evan Hengst), Nathan sustains great bodily damage.
The hook is not that Nathan can overpower these violent criminals, but the fact that nothing these tough guys do can faze him. Nathan is no John Wick. He is truly an average guy whose unique power is just that he keeps getting back up when he's slammed down.
He also takes risks normal action heroes would not because he knows the pain won't bother him. This gradually hobbles him further and further.
Lars Jacobson's script also has fun with action movie tropes like extracting a bullet without the aid of a hospital. Usually the hero is wincing in pain during these scenes, but Nathan is all smiles.
Prior to the bank robbery, Novocaine effectively sets up not only Nathan's condition, but how he's adapted his life to it in ways that will pay off during his adventure. It makes sense that he would have read up on first aid, so that knowledge helps when he continuously injures himself.
Directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen show the graphic details of the injuries Nathan endures. It's not Saw, but some of the injuries are so specific they might be more troubling to audiences than entire limbs being lopped off.
One disappointing note is that the film still employs the outdated trope of a man rescuing a woman. At least Sherry is chosen to be taken hostage because she stands up for herself.
She does more in captivity and participates in the climax of the film, but one can still feel the story reaching to justify making her the damsel in distress. The roles could have just as easily been flipped, like Midthunder's Naru taking on the Predator in the 2022 film Prey.
Any of the scenes with the bank robbers, or with officers Coltraine (Matt Walsh) and Mincy (Betty Gabriel) pursuing both the robbers and Nathan, slow the film down. None should linger any longer than the necessary exposition they provide, yet they stay too long.
Coltraine tries to lighten up Coltraine and Mincy's scenes with jokes about local sports teams that either won't matter to the rest of the world or are so basic that even sports neophytes have already heard them.
So any time Novocaine cuts away from Nathan is a good time for a bathroom break. Or, once the film is streaming, the viewer can fast forward through them and get to the good parts.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
