Novocaine - Movie Review

The Movie: Novocaine

The Directors: Dan Berk & Robert Olsen

The Cast: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Betty Gabriel, Matt Walsh, Lou Beatty Jr., Van Hengst, Conrad Kemp, Jacob Batalon

The Story: When the girl of his dreams is kidnapped, everyman Nate turns his inability to feel pain into an unexpected strength in his fight to get her back.

The Rating: 7 / 10

The Review: 

Sometimes you look at a movie and think, wow, this just seems like a really fun time and that's exactly what Novocaine is. From start to finish, there's nothing but great action and entertaining moments of comedy and the two are often combined to great effect as well. This is not one of those movies that you want to dig into and analyze the heck out of it because you're going to find an awful lot to pick apart. There are so many plot holes, logic gaps, and things that happen that are just way too convenient and you know what. Who cares!

Jack Quaid is the star and protagonist of this movie and I believe he was the perfect choice for this role. He has the proper everyman quality and he definitely showed an ability to genuinely infuse humor into the action scenes which was essential for the story to work. Jack is also the son of the great Dennis Quaid and the incomparable Meg Ryan who I had a legit crush on after the pair starred in the movie Innerspace together which was also a really fun action comedy. If you've never seen Innerspace, I highly recommend it.

Speaking of crushes, how can you not have a crush on Amber Midthunder after her performances in both this movie and in Prey, the Predator franchise movie from 2022 (sorry, I never wrote a review for it, but it's a great movie). Midthunder has a presence that's just made for the silver screen and I can see her being able to grab prime roles in Hollywood films for a long time to come. Again, we're not looking for Oscar caliber performances from this movie, but she's still really great with the part she plays.

Okay, so the premise of this movie is basically a guy who can't feel pain but ends up getting in fights with all kinds of criminal type people so clearly we're going to get a ton of crazy injuries and blood all over the place. Just want you to be aware of what you're getting yourself into as this is definitely not a very kid friendly movie, at least when it comes to the amount of graphic violence on display and I am in no way saying that's a bad thing, I loved every minute of it. I just know it might not be for everyone so there's your disclaimer.