In these first few months of 2025, Jack Quaid has presented a solid portfolio of why he makes for a compelling rising movie star. In Novocaine, he plays a character not all that different from his character in Companion (and both of these are also not too far off from his breakthrough Hughie on The Boys). Classic awkward if generally handsome nerds with a heart of gold towards the woman of their dreams. In Companion, this is largely an affect masking an insecure, apathetic, controlling personality, while in Novocaine it is completely in earnest. And the fact that so soon after his hostile turn in Companion, he can play the flip-side so convincingly in Novocaine speaks I think to a valuable versatility he is capable of even within this archetype that he is probably this generation’s steward for. His quirky charm can be weaponized in a multitude of ways.
That is likely why directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen singled him out for, of all things, an action movie that allows him to play both the tough hero and sweet underdog by virtue of its novel premise. Nathan Caine is a man with a rare condition of Congenital Insensitivity to Pain, which has left him incredibly risk-averse and introverted -he doesn't even eat solid food for fear of biting through his own tongue without realizing it. He works at a San Diego bank, where a co-worker he’s been crushing on Sherry (Amber Midthunder) starts showing interest in him, and they begin a relationship just before she is kidnapped in a violent robbery that prompts Nate to risk everything in tracking the assailants down and rescuing her.
While there are peaks and valleys to the execution of this premise, its critical motivation here is very strongly established. In fact, that relationship between Nate and Sherry and the strength of his feelings for her is one of the movie's greatest attributes. Quaid would be well suited to romantic-comedy in a better age for them, and Midthunder, who should already be a star, meets his idiosyncrasies with a convincingly sweet air of curiosity and charmingly brazen flirtations. They have a terribly cute chemistry with some really nice nuance and subtext there (Midthunder pulls a Before trilogy-style stolen glance), and it believably reflects the kind of life-altering rush of feeling and priorities necessary to throw Nate into this set of circumstances, investing the audience as well in the stakes and intensity of his mission to save the love of his life..
Of course it is those confrontations that come out of this and Nate's unique reaction to them that the movie is built around. Prepping the audience with an organic breakdown of the effects of his condition (which it should be noted is broadly different from real CIP) -he doesn't feel the coffee that Sherry accidentally spills on his hand- the film ultimately engages in a vast array of ailments and injuries to this guy purely off the basis of his inability to react to them. The sequences write themselves: a chase through a kitchen in which he can effortlessly grab burning cast-iron skillets to wield as weapons, a digression through a booby-trapped house a la Home Alone, a torture scene that can be played for laughs. In some sense it is a superpower, as Sherry describes it, but Nate is still an ordinary guy and these wounds are real -allowing the filmmakers to combine Die Hard-like pressure with Schwarzeneggar-style imperviousness.
That said, the film sometimes struggles to find ways to actually make use of this beyond the mere violence of it. If Nate isn't reacting, surely his adversaries should -but only on a couple occasions are they perplexed or visibly taken aback by the lack of effect their blows seem to have on him. The main thief Simon (Ray Nicholson) never learns of this condition, and during their several battles through the film's extended climax barely comments on it beyond the acknowledgement Nate can “take a punch”. In fact some of the fight scenes and injuries so much resemble average action movie combat that it highlights just how exaggerated those movies are. Shrewd, but this film still ought to be doing more.
What does distinguish it at least is Nate’s personality through it all -he’s still a very unconventional action movie lead even without that lack of pain, and it makes for some refreshing encounters with the goons he goes up against. His general hesitance to inflict harm and his somewhat casual demeanour while doing so stand out and position him well as this reluctant lethal force. Of particular note is that torture scene where he does his best to mimic the effects of brutal sadism as well as the nonchalance of his graphically removing a bullet from his arm. There’s some real creativity to the encounters and the consequent violence as well. Nate is led to a tattoo parlour at one point -he himself has an in-progress full body tattoo, the reveal of which has a significant effect on Sherry- and of course a tattoo gun is used as a weapon (as well as, amusingly, a pen) to good effect. His method of getting out of a pair of handcuffs later, though fairly predictable, is likewise gnarly and the climax especially keeps looking for new weird ways to batter him.
For the inventiveness though, it is an egregiously drawn-out climax that looks to be settled some four or five times before it is -either Nate or Simon just keeps getting back up and it has exhausted itself by the time it does come to an end. Perhaps this is to account for other moving parts that build into it involving the cop played by Betty Gabriel, who has spent the movie trailing Nate's vigilantism, Jacob Batalon's internet friend who is a reluctant accomplice at a couple junctures, and of course Sherry herself, who has cards up her own sleeve and more consequential agency than would be initially expected. Some of this feels a little haphazardly plotted out, especially a derivative beat questioning the authenticity of Nate and Sherry's relationship, but Midthunder's performance of conviction is firm enough, especially when taken with the details of her earlier expressed backstory -and she gets to be fully heroic in her own right. It's nice.
Ingenuity and an unexpected sweetness really are the core strengths of Novocaine, which also broadly does well by its action and humour, if these occasionally underwhelm the premise and pacing. It is evidently made with a lot of heart. Novocaine is not a great movie, but as an action-comedy with an underdog hero, copious violence, and a romantic undercurrent, it is definitely the good movie that Love Hurts should have been. Jack Quaid solidly proves his offbeat leading man potential, Amber Midthunder reveals more of her own range and charisma, and as a result the movie is fun, charming, and effectually painless.
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