Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Shy assistant bank manager Nathan Caine cannot feel pain and is nicknamed ‘Novocaine’ by his school bullies, but where others see weakness, his crush at work, Sherry, sees a superhero. So when armed goons take Sherry as hostage during a violent bank heist at his branch, Nathan won’t stop at anything to rescue her.
Directed by Dan Berk, Robert Olsen, action-comedy ‘Novocaine’ stars Jack Quaid (‘The Boys’, ‘Neighborhood Watch’, ‘Heads of States’) as Nathan, who suffers from a rare ‘congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis’. Hit him, stab him, burn him, he won’t feel a thing. But it only takes one date with Sherry (Amber Midthunder) for him to fall hard… bullets, bad guys, and all, he’s not letting anyone steal his dream girl.
The unique plot reminded me of the 2018 Bollywood film ‘Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota’, which literally translates to ‘Man Who Feels No Pain’, and features a protagonist with the same condition. However, the stories are worlds apart, and this might be highly debatable, but Novocaine more entertainingly maximizes Nathan’s “no pain” condition.
Jack Quaid may not have the over-the-top action hero charm, but he is adequately entertaining as the unlikely bank employee who ends up in a violent chase with armed robbers, putting his life on the line, for a girl he barely knows. And the plot throws an interesting twist that makes his ordeal darkly comedic.
A major comic subplot involves the understaffed cops, thanks to the holiday season, scrambling to catch the robbers, who kill a few officers during their escape. Meanwhile, with Nathan chasing them down too, the cops hilariously suspect him for one of the co-conspirators.
You can’t help but root for Nathan, a.k.a. Novocaine, to come out on top, even if he’s wrapped head to toe in bandages. The second half amps up the laughs as he stumbles through a kidnapper’s booby-trapped house, rigged with all kinds of deadly contraptions. Jacob Batalon has an amusing cameo as Nathan’s only friend, who reluctantly agrees to help him at the last minute when things really get out of hand.
Will Novocaine be able to save the girl? Will the cops catch him first? Will the gang get away with the stolen money? Will all of them simply end up dead? Well, the film keeps things interesting until the end, even though the 1 hour 50 minutes runtime could’ve been trimmed a little bit.
I’d say just go watch the film if you’re looking for a laid-back, exaggerated action comedy.
Rating: 7.5 on 10. Watch ‘Novocaine’ on Prime Video.
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