Novocaine (2025): A Review

NOVOCAINE

There are all kinds of pain in the world, from physical to emotional, which we are not impervious to. Well, almost.  The action-comedy Novocaine covers those two types of pain in a mostly fun, self-aware manner. While not without its stumbles, Novocaine is a fun, frothy film that entertains and amuses.

Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) has a very rare medical condition, Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP). This prevents him from feeling any injuries, which puts his life in danger should he require medical attention as he would not be aware of it. Due to this, Nathan has led a pretty sheltered life where he has little interaction with people outside his job as the assistant manager of the San Diego Trust Credit Union. Except for online gaming with someone named Roscoe whom he has never actually met in real life, Nathan has nothing close to a friend, let alone a girlfriend.

However, recent employee Sherry (Amber Midthunter) has caught his eye. To his surprise, he caught her eye too and they begin a sweet romance culminating into a physical one. Nathan finds a new lease on life now, but nothing good lasts. Right before Christmas, the credit union is robbed. The bank robbers kill people and force Nathan to open the safe. They also abduct Sherry. Despite Nathan's very cautious and kind-hearted nature, he races to pursue the abductors. 

His inability to feel physical pain helps him as he gets repeatedly injured in ways that would have killed others. His actions, however, raise the suspicions of Detectives Langston (Betty Gabriel) and Duffy (Matthew Walsh), who initially think that Nathan may have been part of an inside job at the San Diego Trust.

They are not far off, as the bank heist was part of an inside job, but not from Nathan. With some help, albeit extremely reluctantly, from Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), Nathan stumbles his way into dispatching two of the three bank robbers, brothers Ben (Evan Hengst) and Andre Clark (Conrad Kemp). Bank robbery mastermind Simon (Ray Nicholson) has a surprise or two up his sleeve for this unexpected nuisance, who did not count on love to get in the way of his perfect bank job. More killings ensue before the final confrontation, but things end on a relatively happy note.

There were many things that I appreciated about Novocaine. It took time to build up the Nathan/Sherry relationship without it going too long. It also gave us likeable characters and a surprising amount of physical and verbal comedy. Lars Jacobson's screenplay had some quite amusing bits of dialogue between Langston and Duffy. When preparing to raid a house where Nathan is trapped, Duffy remarks that he blames San Diego's downward slide to when the Chargers and Clippers (football and basketball teams respectively) left the city. Another time, Nathan ends a telephone call where he got some information by repeating the other person's unheard closing line of "Go Padres!" (the baseball team and sole remaining major league sports team left in town).

Novocaine is a film that clearly loves San Diego. 

The film had fun with the premise while taking it just seriously enough to not slip into total silliness. Nathan is impervious to physical pain, but he is not immune from its effects. As Novocaine goes on, the film finds more and more outlandish ways of torturing him. The fact that you know that Nathan is not going to feel it made for some very funny moments. Sometimes it went a bit overboard for my liking (the climactic battle between Nathan and Simon had one moment that downright horrified me and had the audience both gasp and wince). The scene where Nathan is apparently tortured by Andre is both funny and gruesome, as again at times I found Novocaine too graphic in its depiction of violence.

Jacobson's screenplay also did something quite clever in that it put the audience ahead of the characters. Without giving away major spoilers, we know the truth about the bank robbery long before Nathan does. This builds up the anticipation of the shock that he will get. By this time, however, the audience has grown to like the characters, even some of the villains. 

A good part of the credit for that goes to directors Dan Burke and Robert Olsen, who guided their actors to strong performances. Novocaine is, I presume, the breakout role for Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan's son in film (full disclosure: I have never seen The Boys and have a vague awareness of it). I confess to struggling not to write "Jack" for "Nathan", especially as in some moments Jack Quaid has more than a passing resemblance to his father. However, I think Jack Quaid did quite well as Nathan Caine. We saw Nathan's goodness and compassion, where we see a good man and not just a nice one. Early in Novocaine, Nathan finds a way to delay a required payment from Earl (Lou Beatty, Jr.), a recent widower. While letting him know that this delay may not save his business, it might allow him just enough time to make a mortgage payment and save his home.

You can see Nathan's compassion for a good man still grieving his wife's death. You can also see how Nathan sees his own lack of attachments reflected in Earl's longtime marriage. Quaid is likeable throughout Novocaine. He keeps true to the character: having goofy moments in the early days of love, and forever apologetic whenever he inadvertently causes chaos. However, he also shows Nathan's determination to rescue Sherry. Quaid gives Nathan an everyman quality, of someone who does his best in outrageous situations and who fights his way against his own fears. Quaid blends the humor and heart in Novocaine quite well. He can handle the comedy well, but it is too soon to say if he can move beyond his parents' shadows to be a star in his own right. Novocaine, however, is a good calling card for his future in film.

Midthunder is also pleasant as Sherry. While not the strongest of performances, Midthunder manages to make Sherry charming, endearing and even at her worst, sympathetic. Nicholson (the other nepo baby as he is the son of Jack Nicholson) has a lot of fun as the villainous Simon, cruel and sadistic but not without his own moments of mirthful menace. Batalon does not come on screen until late in Novocaine, but he does have a good manner in his comic sidekick. 

The film is not without some missteps in my view. A character is killed off that I think took the air out of the overall fun and goofiness in Novocaine, and the film never fully recovers from that moment. It runs an hour and fifty minutes, which is I think longer than it should have been. As I stated earlier, some of the violence, while at times funny, did get a bit more graphic and gruesome for my taste. Judging from the audience reaction, it went a bit too far for them too. Finally, there was a strange line about how Nathan essentially benefitted from white male privilege, which I though was not needed. Starting Novocaine with R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts was, I figure, meant to be ironic. It fell a bit flat for me, but that was probably the least of its stumbles. 

On the whole, Novocaine knows what it is: a fun, goofy action-comedy that has a little romance thrown in. With charming leads, a premise that balances being serious and silly, I think Novocaine will, overall, entertain and amuse viewers. 

DECISION: B-