After the recent Companion, Scream and especially TV series ‘The Boys’ the rise of Jack Quaid continues with Novocaine a spin on the superhero theme with him playing Nathan Caine, a man who feels no pain so it’s appropriate that he plays an assistant bank manager already foreclosing on a guys business. But Nathan is likeable yet shy adhering to a daily routine and there’s a reason for the routine as he has a biological disorder that sees him unable to feel any pain meaning that he lives on liquid as chewing might see him bite his own tongue off and he sets his watch alarm for three hour intervals as a reminder to take bathroom breaks lest his bladder bursts (we only wish our Editor would set himself an alarm too when he’s on a liquid lunch break The Nag’s Head because his dry cleaning bill is huge- ‘You’re fired!’ Ed).
But his shyness is the opposite to Sherry (Amber Midthunder) the new clerk who flirts with him and gradually develop into a relationship. And all is Heaven until Hell bursts through the bank doors when three armed Santa’s (about the only concession the film makes to its Christmas time setting) burst through the bank doors, rob the safe and take Sherry as hostage. Loved up Nathan then goes on a cross city chase to rescue her and in the course of doing so finds his inability to feel pain tested to the extreme. With bone snapping, body puncturing pain to the max and often in wince inducing close up!
At the centre of this is a tremendous extended death defying set piece in a booby trapped house. And yet the jokey-ness of the whole enterprise is often undermined by those big close ups of often excruciating injuries or pain being inflicted and it’s most notably in a finger nail extraction torture scene giving the film, which at its heart has a one joke premise, an uneven tone. Either go for the laughs or go for the Punisher like violence – it’s an often difficult balance to successfully incorporate both. But Quaid is as engaging as ever in the lead and there’s a franchise in the making here even if the one joke premise wears out pretty quickly.
related feature : Amber Midthunder chats to us about her role in Prey
related feature : What went on behind the scenes with the Scream cast ……..
Here’s the Novocaine trailer…..
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