Novocaine

It's very inventive for what it is.

...[Novocaine is] billed as a comedy but the joke goes missing in the first few minutes amid the volume of blood splashed around on the screen.

It's not as fun as it should be...

Novocaine feels like a brainstorming session for itself, which is all very well, until you realise that the only part being fully exercised is the lizard brain.

Quaid’s personable screen presence holds things together, even as his brutally beaten body starts to fall apart. But this gory action comedy has just one joke, and like poor, battered and bleeding Nathan it starts to run out of juice.

It’s an exquisite, though unintentional, symbol of the contemporary studio action movie... These films have become profoundly boring because their protagonists don’t appear to feel pain.

The opening act, detailing the romance between Nathan and Sherry, is so sweetly handled that we almost wish this were simply a love story. That changes once the crooks show up.

As a grisly metaphor for love and opening oneself up to torment, Novocaine is a painlessly entertaining watch.

If the plot is predictable to a fault, Quaid's chemistry with his would-be onscreen girlfriend, his comic timing, and the occasionally clever flourishes within the action setpieces keep this popcorn contraption humming along.



The action scenes are top notch, if not a little over the top. I mean, sure you can’t feel someone smash your head into a wall but you should at least stumble a little, right?