Jack Quaid is having himself a season. The son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan made his film debut back in 2012, being shot by Katniss’ arrow in The Hunger Games, but this year he portrayed a possessive incel in hiss-worthy fashion in Companion. This week, he brings a lightness and charm to Novocaine, an action-comedy where he plays an ordinary man (albeit with an extraordinary medical condition) who’s thrust into the plot of an action-thriller and is terrified. We’ve seen this setup before, but Quaid makes it feel fresh.
He portrays Nathan Caine, the assistant manager of a San Diego credit union who’s nicknamed “Novocaine” because he doesn’t feel any physical pain. This is the result of a real-life genetic disorder that affects the nerves. It might sound awesome to feel no pain, and to be able to ink a massive tattoo covering the whole of your own chest, which Nate has done. One thing I like about this movie is that it demonstrates the massive trade-offs of this condition, as Novocaine points out that at 30, he has already outlived the life expectancy of people with it. His office furniture has hollowed-out tennis balls placed on the corners so that he doesn’t bump into them, and he keeps supplies of disinfectants and bandages for the wounds that he doesn’t feel. He takes his coffee over ice to avoid burning his mouth, and he sticks to a liquid diet because chewing solid food might make him bite his tongue without realizing it. On a related note, he has to remind himself to urinate every so often or his bladder will explode. He doesn’t go out much, and his social life is mainly staying at home and playing video games. His condition resulted in him being bullied in middle school, and Sherry (Amber Midthunder), the teller at his workplace whom he has a crush on, neatly uses it to inflict some revenge on one of the bullies (Tristan de Beer) at a bar.
What changes all this is the events one Christmas Eve, when three armed robbers dressed as Santa Claus hold up the credit union, which is full of cash to pay off members’ Christmas bonuses. The robbery goes south and the criminals kill the bank manager as well as three cops, then drive off with the cash and Sherry as a hostage. After saving a wounded policeman’s life, Novocaine steals the officer’s police cruiser and tears off after the bad guys to rescue the woman he loves.
Clearly this movie was made to showcase a bunch of fight scenes involving a guy who doesn’t react when he’s kicked in the testicles. The movie hits a sweet spot with a scene in the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant, where Nate fights off a bad guy with a comal and a bag of masa harina. He hits the villain with a smoking-hot cast-iron skillet and then starts counseling him on how to treat third-degree burns. This movie was actually shot in San Diego, and it’s gratifying to see it use locations in the city — the filmmakers know that the city is more than just the zoo and SeaWorld.
That said, the movie attempts to connect Novocaine’s painless life with his unwillingness to feel love for someone, and it doesn’t come off. On a more grounded level, the film takes too long to reach its end. Even though Nate’s condition allows him to inflict a memorably gruesome death on the last of the bad guys, the climactic chase from a house to an auto repair shop to the San Diego Harbor is too drawn out.
If this movie is built around a single joke, Quaid makes the joke work, especially in a scene when the robbers torture him and he pretends (quite badly) that he’s in terrible pain. Whether he can carry a different type of movie remains a question, but his comic skills and lightness well suit him to carry this movie.
Novocaine
Starring Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder. Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olson. Written by Lars Jacobson. Rated R.
