A man beaten down by the corporate world feels no physical pain. When the girl he is crushing on is kidnapped by bank robbers, he assumes the role of a lovestruck vigilante, using his unassuming “power” to hunt them down. This premise is plucked straight out of the imagination of a middle school boy.
The painless hero is Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid), our pseudosuperhero in Novacaine. His pseudosuperpower is the result of a rare genetic disorder, congenital insensitivity to pain, which makes him invulnerable to any pain stimulus. This doesn’t mean he can’t get hurt; his apartment is decorated with safeguards, from tennis balls on the corners of tables to a marker on his shower knob to prevent him from unknowingly stepping out with third-degree burns. This paranoia—instilled, in part, by his worried parents—has caused Nathan to be an introvert.
Nathan keeps a day job as a low-level bank executive. There, he’s starry-eyed for one of the bank clerks, Sherry (Amber Midthunder). The flirtation is evident from the beginning, with Sherry sneaking up behind Nathan as he pours hot coffee all over his hand (no harm done). As he’s caring for his burns, she asks him out for lunch, and next thing you know, they’re sitting over cherry pie (which Nathan’s never tried in fear of biting off his tongue). She pushes him to try it, and he does so with ecstasy. She is doing something Nathan has never experienced: making him vulnerable.
But he leans in. They go out to a bar, and some old bullies tease him about his old nickname: Novocaine. Sherry tricks one bully into drinking extra-extra-hot sauce, and they leave. The film clumsily tries to build emotional connection between the two, and after a skimmed-over night together, Nathan is head over heels.
It all unravels when Sherry is kidnapped during a bank robbery by a trio of Santa Clauses the next morning. Nathan—feeling the adrenaline of love at first sight—decides he will do anything to get her back. What follows is a cornucopia of violence as Nathan gracelessly pursues the kidnappers. It’s enough to make the most seasoned gore-movie-watchers uneasy, making Nathan into a ragdoll for about an hour and a half. It’s a repetitive bloodbath without the adrenaline of some action marathons like John Wick. Instead of wondering how much more Nathan Caine can endure, I’m left wondering how much more Novocaine I can stomach. R, 110 min.
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