'NOVOCAINE'.........NO PAIN, A LOTTA GAIN.....

 Novocaine (2025)

     Whether the filmmakers who put together this rambunctious little action-comedy meant it or not, their movie comes off as a clever spoof.

     Of what, you ask? Think about all the action movie heroes of the last 20 years or so......(excluding all Marvel/D.C.superheroes)......

      Though mere mortals like us viewers, they seem capable of enduring amounts of physical punishment and pain that would leave the rest of us in the hospital anywhere from a year to a decade.....

       We loved Bruce Willis's indestructible John McClane in all his "Die Hard" movies, even as we overlooked his remarkable ability to absorb more bone crushing agony than Wile.E. Coyote in pursuit of the Road Runner.  (Not that he wasn't good at showing us how much it hurt.....Willis, we mean, not the Coyote...)

       But what if we came upon an unlikely action hero who really can't gasp, screech and moan when he suffers industrial strength boo boos?

       Which brings us to "Novocaine"s all around nice guy and bank loan officer Nate, played in likable, everyman, Jack Lemon-ish style by Jack Quaid. Nate's such a sweetheart that cute bank teller Sherry (Amber Midthunder) is going out of her way to flirt with him. 

       And she subsequently finds out from Nate that he was born with a genetic disorder that's left him without the ability to feel any pain whatsoever. The poor guy even needs an alarm to remind him to pee before his bladder bursts. 

       Nate's fallen hard for Sherry, which comes into play when a pair of brutal bank robbers force Nate to spill the bank vault combination after beating up Sherry. At the sight these murderous goons dragging her along as a getaway hostage, Nate vows to track them down and rescue his potential girlfriend-to-be. 

       Then the fun stuff commences......Nate's non-stop onslaught of violent encounters leaves him with pulverized bones, a hand fried to a crisp, limbs bent and twisted in positions they were never meant to go.... a catastrophic parade of inflicted pain that would leave any ordinary human shrieking in torment.

        But not our Nate, whose flesh feels nothing, and can only annoyingly shrug off each injury as interrupting his Quixotic singe-minded quest to save Sherry from those psycho thugs. And here's where Jack Quaid truly excels, delivering a master class in white middle class exasperation mixed with bravura physical comedy. He's brilliant all the through the film,  a blood soaked, broken boned Energizer Bunny. And the more misery inflicted on him, the more we erupt in sick laughter......

         We also liked that just when the film starts to run out of steam and storyline, the script pops open a plot twist that raises the stakes for both Nate and Sherry.....which serves to keep the mayhem going for the last third of the film. 

        Nasty, inventive fun. It breezed in and out of theaters in a week or less, but you can catch it on Prime or Paramount+ if you're in the mood for a guilty pleasure wallow in.

          3 stars (***).