Novocaine

Grade: B

Just a month and a half after Companion, where Jack Quaid’s girlfriend was a robot, he is starring as Nathan Caine in Novocaine. In Companion, he performed cruel tests on his “beep boop” to see if she can understand pain. His character in Novocaine has a condition where he can’t feel pain, or understand extreme hotness/coldness. The faucet in his shower is set not to go beyond a certain temperature, so he won’t unknowingly burn his skin off. He doesn’t feel the urge to take care of biological needs; he has an alarm set every three hours to remind himself to go pee. He says he can’t have solid food, because he might bite his tongue off. There’s a scene in a diner where he finally tries pie, and loves it. “What have I been missing out on?” and all that. I wondered how he could taste it.

It goes without saying that there’s a grey area here, where I’m not sure everything tracks, but Novocaine is an enjoyable experience, largely because of Quaid’s down-home likability. He has the “romantic lead” charm of his mother, Meg Ryan – and in the action sequences, he has the same devilish smile as his father, Dennis Quaid. His Nathan Caine is the assistant manager at a bank. He mainly keeps to himself, spending his time at home playing video games with a guy he’s never met in person, but is about to, once the plot kicks in.

He’s a bit of a recluse, because he’s understandably shy about disclosing his condition – but he agrees to go on a date with Sherry, a fairly new teller at the bank. It’s almost Christmas, by the way, which has little to do with anything. I hope there won’t be a collective of people who will argue for decades that Novocaine is a Christmas movie. It’s not one, unlike Die Hard, which absolutely is. But anyway, the bank gets robbed by three Santas. They kidnap Sherry. We are now into action territory, as Nathan takes matters into his invincible hands and pursues them.

As expected, much is made of Nathan’s imperviousness to pain – to an amusing end. You can already see one of the funniest scenes in the trailer. He’s doing his best to act tortured while being tortured. “Oh. No. Stop it. Oh, that hurt! That one hurt the most!” Quaid’s character in Companion wasn’t the greatest guy in the world, but we can root for his Nathan Caine much more. Amber Midthunder (Dream Scenario, Prey, Hell or High Water) does nice work as Sherry, and there’s more to her than we initially know. And we have another child of a big star with Ray Nicholson (Smile 2) as one of the robbers. Same ear to ear grin. Here’s Junior!

What I respected about the ending is that there are appropriate consequences for every character’s actions, including the people we like. They don’t get to just go off and do everything they do, then return to work and regular life on Monday. They arrive at a happy conclusion, but not without taking their medicine. There’s a scene at the end with forced, claustrophobic closeups that let us know it’s obviously concealing something. It’s easy to guess where they are even before the camera does show more. Novocaine has enough action, laughs, momentum, appealing actors, and gas in the tank to carry it through. If a tree fell in the woods and hit Caine in the head, would he know?

Grade: B