Novocaine: Too Painful to Watch, Too Funny to Miss
By Thom Ernst
Rating: B+
It's hard to criticize a film that, in a single moment, can both repulse and amuse; a film where you laugh while averting your eyes.
Novocaine is that film—a raucous, non-stop, full-throttle slapstick comedy that makes an episode of The Three Stooges seem like a production of Swan Lake. It’s torture porn with a laugh track from the director team, Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. Berk and Olsen have made four films together. Novocaine might be the film that gains them name recognition.
Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) feels no pain in Novocaine.
But does the excessive, bloody violence in the film work? That likely depends on your pain threshold and your capacity to endure close-up depictions of extreme torture inflicted on another human being while accepting it as entertainment.
After all, Novocaine is a comedy where all the punchlines are, in fact, punches or some similar physical variation in the same vein. Novocaine embraces reckless abandon with no regard for the frequent fatal collateral damage it inflicts along the way. Most will likely be okay with that.
Jack Quaid plays Nathan Caine, a character with a badass name and an even badass-y-er condition. It’s spelled out on the movie poster: Nathan Caine feels no pain. Caine has CIP, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, a rare neurological disorder that, according to Google, exists. Caine can still experience pleasure, which he discovers after spending the night with his secret office love interest, Sherry (Amber Midthunder).
The signature rhyming of his name with his unique diagnosis should be your first indication that Novocaine is more interested in setting up absurd aesthetics than adhering to reality. The other clue is everything else in the movie.
Quaid, the sole and lasting evidence of the defunct relationship between Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, is an interesting choice to play Caine. Quaid is an actor whose safe appearance—handsome but not too handsome—is a nice fit for Nate’s meek demeanor and unusual affliction, which makes him the target of bullies. He only consumes liquids to avoid biting off his tongue, has a heat gauge in the shower, and has toddler-proofed his home and office with tennis balls on sharp corners, all in the effort to avoid undetected injury. He even sets a timer to go to the bathroom.
“You’re a superhero,” coos Sherry when learning of Nate’s condition. Nate accepts the praise with a shrug, a coy nod to his Hughie Campbell role in the series, The Boys.
Novocaine joins the list of Christmas-alternative movies, like Die Hard and countless Christmas horror films. The numbers aren’t in, but I suspect there may now be more counter-Christmas movies than traditional Christmas movies.
In Novocaine, the employees at a friendly neighbourhood San Diego bank are gearing up for the holidays when the bank is robbed by three vicious men dressed in Santa Claus outfits (whether intentional or not, I’m reminded of The Silent Partner, an excellent Canadian thriller, filmed at Toronto’s Eaton’s Centre).
The one woman who Nate has felt interest in, and who in turn shows interest in him, is taken as hostage. The rest of the film is Nate on a relentless pursuit of rescuing her from certain death.
Most of the comedy is physical, aside from a sharp-witted police officer (Matt Walsh) who delivers some of the film’s best one-liners. Adding a bit of nasty humour to the dialogue is a sinister performance from Ray Nicholson (Jack’s son) who, following his memorable appearances in Smile 2 (2024) and Licorice Pizza (2021) is well on his way to stardom. Providing additional comedy relief is Jacob Batalon better known as Ned Lee, Spidey’s buddy in the Tom Holland Spiderman franchise.
Novocaine. Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. Starring Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, and Matt Walsh. In theatres March 14.