Film Review: Novocaine

Despite my best efforts (five minutes spent on Google) I have not been able to find the scientific term for ‘hatred of hands.’ The closest is chirophobia, the fear of hands, but after watching Novocaine, I’m certain that directors, Dan Berk & Robert Olsen, don’t so much fear their digits, but despise them.

Jack Quaid plays the rather luckless bank executive, Nathan "Novocaine" Caine, who spends a large part of the film having said appendages cut, ripped, broken, pierced, burned and, in one memorable scene, deep-fried. It is like the makers of the Hostel horror-films decided to make an action comedy and also really hate hands… 

What stops this film from being sheer body horror is the film's main concept: Caine has a rare genetic condition making him unable to feel pain. Despite how helpful that might sound, it has created a pretty miserable life for Caine. He can’t eat solid food because there is a chance he might chew his tongue off without realising it. He sets regular alarms to remind himself to pee so his bladder doesn’t explode from absent-mindedness.

This condition and a whole host of other circumstances means our poor hero has few friends and the love life of a particularly zealous St Benedictine monk. That is until Sherry Margrave (Amber Midthunder), a recently hired bank-employee, comes into his life. Their blossoming romance is sweet, touching and endearing. In too many films it feels like romantic attachment comes from characters being a) being attractive, b) they’re the film’s leads and c) because the script says so. 

Novocaine is at its best in those first twenty minutes. The film sets out the ‘rules’ of Caine’s condition without sounding like clunky exposition and watching these two characters, who are seemingly very different people, find each other is well done. In fact, it is done so well that when Sherry is later kidnapped by bank robbers it manages to seem plausible that the mild-mannered bank manager would steal a cop car and give chase.

Unfortunately, this is the high waterline of the film. This is partly because Novocaine commits the cardinal sin of showing 90% of the film’s highlights in the trailer. But mostly it is because, after that great opening, it turns into a rather generic, by-the-numbers action flick. Yes, Caine not being able to feel pain is a good twist on the old dynamic, but it is not enough to carry the film.

Jack Quaid is fine in the role and I can see why he’s starting to get some buzz as the next ‘Tom Hanks.’ However, Hanks has range and I’m starting to wonder if Quaid does. I’ve seen him now as three different protagonists and there is little daylight between any of them. Amber Midthunder is great in that opening 20 minutes, but then is basically relegated to ‘girl-in-trouble,’ for the rest of the film.  

From there it is a fast descent in quality. The three bank robbers are so interchangeable it was difficult to tell them apart and the pursuing detectives were such cliches it seemed like a setup for a joke – it wasn’t. The real wooden spoon though has to go to Jacob Batalon playing best friend Roscoe… The best I can say is he's only in the film for the last twenty minutes, but man, are you going to feel those twenty minutes.

There is fun to be had here. Quaid does likable loser well and the action is cleverly thought out (though somewhat ruined by the trailer), but it does end up feeling like a missed opportunity. If you’re a big fan of the lead and you’re not too squeamish then I think it is worth catching on whatever streaming platform it ends up on.

However, don’t worry if you’re not because quite frankly I don’t think even fans are going to remember Novocaine existed six months from now.