Who wouldnโt want to go through life without experiencing pain? This is a question one might ask in the face of Novocaine (2025) and its particular action-comedy gimmick, but is also one that the film answers just as soon as it sets it up. In theory, the lack of physical pain would make life a breeze, but in the end, thereโs a reason our bodies tell us weโre hurting; the only thing more dangerous than the knife is the knife that slowly bleeds you out before you ever realize it was ever there in the first place.
For a film as ostensibly โDeadpoolโ-brained as this one (right down to the protagonistโs โabilityโ), youโd hardly expect such an angle, and directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen donโt exactly escape the potential charges of โcomedy that trades layered punchlines for juvenile curses amid the blood-splatter.โ For what itโs worth, however, โNovocaineโ never forgets the implications of its pain-free premise, and finds just as much in the character as it does in the slapstickโฆ regardless of how much more (or less) could have been at play.
The central gimmick in question, as you may have deduced by now, is that Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) suffers from a rare congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP), which essentially leaves the pain receptors in his brain completely numb to any sort of trauma to the body. Everyone who hears this immediately hails it as some sort of superpower, but Nate has lived this way long enough to know that heโs essentially a reverse-Wolverine; he may not feel any aches from a gash in his leg or a third-degree burn, but perhaps losing that numbness that might be worth the trade-off of noticing that your shoe is filling up with blood because youโve stepped on a rusty nail.
Living his sheltered life wary of the fact that any scrape or breakage could appear and cause him life-threatening harm completely unbeknownst to himโthe man doesnโt even eat solid food out of fear that he may inadvertently bite off his own tongueโNateโs trepidation is alleviated somewhat by the presence of his recent bank coworker, Sherry (Amber Midthunder). A beacon of light in his secluded existence, Sherryโs effect on Nateโs state of mind becomes ever clearer when a bank robbery results in her being taken hostage. With nothing in his life but her, Nate sets off on an impromptu rescue mission.
Any other comedic scenario would likely turn Nateโs condition and his complete lack of any physical prowess as a literal punching-bag, but while Lars Jacobsonโs script doesnโt even attempt to reach for an explanation as to how the timid banker manages to hit back, โNovocaineโ is at least earnest in its desire to express why heโs doing so. True, Berk and Olsen lack the visual eyes for choreography and set-piece construction that made even last monthโs โLove Hurtsโ mildly propulsive in its action aims, but the creative application of Nateโs CIP gives this film its own tempered charm.
One scene in particular, in which Nate is forced to buy time by feigning excruciating pain in a torture scenario, is rather emblematic of what โNovocaineโ is able to achieve when the dosage is just right, as Quaidโs calculated delivery is matched with surprisingly gnarly developments for the sort of film ostensibly engineered for 13-year-olds to sneak into after purchasing tickets for โSnow White.โ Right up to the end, Berk and Olsen turn the punchline in on itself to keep Nateโs increasingly gruesome changes just as consequential to the characterโs safety as they are amusingly grisly.
For all this creativity on display, the filmโs inherent forward motion dictated by a seemingly time-sensitive chase does begin to come down from its high once โNovocaineโ limps towards its finale. A typical conclusion is here subverted to a final sequence that, like Nateโs physical state, begins to feel like overkill that cripples the momentum of the narrative; though the filmโs ending remains emblematic of the aforementioned mixture of comic repulsion, Berk and Olsen lose track of the tight, 90-minute thrill-ride buried somewhere in this near-two-hour overflow of increasingly relevant settings and side characters.
To its credit, Jacobsonโs script does make the effort to compile consequential narrative developments, particularly in the central relationship between its two would-be romantic leads, to try and justify this padding-out; nonetheless, Dan Berk and Robert Olsen leave a few too many wounds unpatched to bleed out. Through all the bloody knuckles and broken bones, though, what โNovocaineโ accomplishes, if rather sappily, is giving Nate a believable justification for all this pain heโs (not) enduring for Sherry. The brainโs lack of reaction to the bodyโs pangs doesnโt necessarily preclude the heartโs sunken reaction to the depression of the mind, nor its uplift from the gentle touch of a loving hand to caress the bruises.
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