Mucking With Movies: ‘Novocaine’

The Jack Quaid era is upon us. Like it or not, his mediocrity is here to spread across blockbusters like a virus. The weakest part in the stellar “Companion” from earlier this year, in “Novocaine,” Quaid continues to prove he is the cinematic equivalent of avocado toast: unremarkable, overhyped, and you know rich parents are involved somewhere.

I saw Anthony Mackie talk in an interview recently about how studios are churning through stars right now. He cited how the gatekeepers will pick a star to saturate the market with until they’re drowned out as a way to get rid of the typical movie star who draws a rate of $20 million a movie.

“Every two years, you have some white boy come up then have a five-year run. Next thing you know, he’s in a State Farm commercial and then does a movie with Anne Hathaway, then that’s it.”

I saw that quote right after getting home from “Novocaine,” and a lot of things clicked into place. 

It’s not like his acting partners were performing circles around him, either. Amber Midthunder showed no chemistry with him as his love interest, Sherry, when they ran through a romantic comedy on nitrous during the first act. Ray Nicholson flopped horribly as the charismatic unhinged villain, Simon, and the police detective pairing of Betty Gabriel as Mincy and Matt Walsh as Coltraine were devoid of the comedic relief they were seemingly written to provide. It all felt so… uninspired — particularly with how uniquely interesting the premise is.

A man who can’t feel pain and turns that previously perceived handicap into a superpower — it’s a hanging curveball to knock out the park. It should be something of a mix between the “John Wick” franchise and a vaudeville flick. Instead, it played out like a C-list professional wrestling match: Violence for violence’s sake that isn’t overly impressive in its gratuitous goriness or stylizing. If you have an R rating and a protagonist who can’t feel pain but still bleeds like an average human, you would think they would have veins popping like a geyser. But no, they give enough that an average viewer will squirm a little in the moment but forget about it two days later. They hold back from doing something that would create a singularity to build off their one-of-a-kind idea. 

On that note, the cinematography here is upsettingly bleak. One of the most hideous films of the year, in just how boring everything looks, could have been mistaken for a State Farm commercial. Once upon a time, cinephiles would mock Michael Bay for his lack of technical skill in his blow-em-up, explosion-laden flicks, but it’s drivel like this that makes me miss his influence. At least he always had a visual motif; I yearn for the days of the tinted blue looks with golden backlight visuals that powered the early “Transformers” films. It was something to grip onto amongst all the chaos. Now, there’s nothing. 

But, despite all my negativity in the past 500 words, it’s not like the movie sucked. There was plenty of fun to be had, and the audience that surrounded me in the theater were hooting and hollering, so it had the grips in us. They do use the gimmick for a couple of cool action pieces; one that needs a shout-out is Nathan, Quaid’s character, pounding his fists into broken glass to turn his punches into lethal weapons. Again, the execution of it is nothing to write about, but the idea is cool! It follows through on the potential! It is followed up with an excellent twist in the script that shatters our understanding of one of the characters. It was enticing enough to keep me from hating it and to keep me sitting up in my seat a bit to see how it all played out. 

Could this film have been better if anybody but Quaid was in the principal role? Perhaps. It’s a fun little exercise to do some fantasy casting and consider what the film would be like with different actors in the main role. Would a Y’lan Noel or an Alan Ritchson have better balanced that absurdism and violence? Or if you had kept with the “mundane man” idea and thrown Barry Keoghan in there, would he have made the whole thing feel that much more visceral?

I don’t know. As I mentioned, the film’s look was always going to hold the whole thing back. But, ultimately, what we are left with is an enjoyable but forgettable action comedy.

Critic Score: 4.8 out of 10

Jack Simon is a mogul coach and writer/director who enjoys eating food he can’t afford, traveling to places out of his budget, and creating art about skiing, eating, and traveling while broke. Check out his website jacksimonmakes.com to see his Jack’s Jitney travelogue series. You can email him at jackdocsimon@gmail.com for inquiries of any type.