If we’re in a post- “John Wick” era, where action cinema has been revitalized and modernized — more bullets and blood, more choreographed spectacle — the thrills of the genre have strangely edged closer and closer to that earliest of movie pleasures: slapstick. Particularly in the man-on-a-rampage subgenre, as the violence and gore becomes increasingly absurd, these movies begin to echo that old format, where the more creative and outrageous the pain, the more visceral the pleasure.
That’s essentially the kind of silly, gross-out fun of “Novocaine,” which taps into this understanding about as overtly as possible. The key is in the invincibility clause — if, like the Three Stooges themselves, our action hero is virtually indestructible, the pain and its wacky payoffs can be endless.
Other films have presented unique and often inane spins on this idea (from Jason Statham in “Crank” to Logan Marshall-Green in “Upgrade”), but this film, directed by Robert Olsen and Dan Berk, takes it to its most extreme, via an almost stupidly simple premise: Because of a genetic disorder, our protagonist Nate Caine (Jack Quaid) can’t feel any physical pain. Cue just about as many ways one can try to invoke it.
Nate, though, is no willing bionic man, but in fact the opposite. Because he doesn’t have the sensors of pain to notify him if something has gone wrong, he’s led a conversely bubble-boy existence, fearful that at any moment he might unknowingly injure and kill himself. He tennis-balls the corners of desks, doesn’t eat solid foods (God forbid he bites off his own tongue!) and has become a bit of a recluse.
That is until he connects with Sherry (Amber Midthunder), who works with him at a bank and who teases out a newfound zeal for life within him. But Nate’s euphoria is short-lived. When Sherry is kidnapped during a bank heist, he reluctantly goes after her captors, embarking on a grisly rescue mission that entails pulled fingernails and battered (like actually, in boiling oil) body parts — all to no feeling on Nate’s part.
You might call the premise a gimmick, but the film has just enough imagination to make this a breezy enough ride, one where the fun is in our flinching. That’s in spite of the action sequences that themselves are, beyond the visceral prickle of all these extreme moments of pain, quite dull in their choreography and camerawork, lacking the punchy kinetic flair that has become the trademark of modern action fare.
Instead, the violent comedy works most of all through Quaid, who is natural and nimble in embodying the funny paradox of a nebbishy hero who just won’t go down. That spin on the indestructible man is, on paper, what’s meant to make “Novocaine” stand out from the John Wicks and Jason Stathams we know so well. But what keeps it from deflating into tiresome shtick (which it very nearly does) is Quaid with his gawky, boyish charisma, an actual tough guy who just doesn’t know how to act it.
Novocaine
Rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images and language throughout. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters.
