Novocaine is way more melodramatic than I expected

Blender Dumbass
July 23, 2025

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The premise of 2025 Dan Berk and Robert Olsen co-directed film Novocaine is very simple: An action adventure about a dude who doesn't feel pain. On paper it sounds like a kind of absurdist horror comedy that is constantly shocking the audiences with something that is utterly fucked up, but the joke is, the main character doesn't give a damn. And there is this, if you are looking for this, in Novocaine. But there is also more.

I remember a few years ago, my girlfriend wanted to shock me by forcing me to watch a video about some Russian kid with the exact same condition as Jack Quaid's character in this movie. This is not a joke condition. There are actual people that actually have that condition. And most of them don't survive long, for obvious reasons. The film Novocaine is surprisingly taking this aspect of the condition very seriously. Based on the trailers for the film, I was not prepared for this movie to actually have such real stuff in it.

The film, probably jokingly ( but could be due to inexperience of the writer Lars Jacobson ) opens up like a student film, with the main character waking up, doing his morning routine, and going to work.

Strangely enough, in this movie it works, because even though this kind of scene would be completely unnecessary with any other character, in this movie it serves as a kind of soft exposition. It doesn't tell you what Nathan's condition is, but it gives you a lot of images that make you question what it is, unless of course you've seen the trailer, or read the damn tagline on the poster. In which case you already know. And this scene is kind of pointless.

The film takes a whole 25 minutes to get to the interesting action stuff. Everything before just builds character and establishes stuff to pay off later. Like the character of Earl ( Lou Beatty Jr. ). It also foreshadows a few revelations that come later with Sherry ( Amber Midthunder, who you may know from Prey ). And it gives an emotional reason for the main character to go on the adventure. Pretty by the book stuff, but not badly done. There is a lot of joy with watching a person experience things for the first time. And with Nathan's condition a lot of things that happen in the first 25 minutes are all new to him. Like he never ate a pie in his life, because chewing might make him bite his tongue off by mistake.

When the good stuff starts it is not all of a sudden going a million miles an hour. It is gory, it is shocking, it is funny, it is well made, but it is not a Michael Bay movie. I was expecting more gore from this film. Surprisingly it was rather tame. Maybe because I just watched Until Dawn and the gore is comically over the top in that film. Novocaine is a bit more serious in that regard.

I think the movie sort of missed an opportunity there with the villains. There was one very cool scene when Nathan is punching a bunch of broken glass, to get it stuck in his fists, to fight better. And a villain Nazi character ( with a swastika tattoo ) is looking at it with an expression of pure "what the fuck". But the main trio of bad guys never get a moment like this, which is a waste in my opinion. There is a sort of moment like this in the very end, but the guy dies before he has a time to say "what the fuck".

Direction-wise the movie is not flashy, but done very competently and smartly. A lot of the movie is shot in such a way as to not quite reveal what is actually going on, or what is going to happen. I think a different, better director, would have revealed more earlier, to build tension. But I guess the surprise tactic, this movie went with, works as well.

For $18 million ( which is a lot less than $40 million Bay used to make Ambulance ) this movie feels almost at the same scale. Bay's film is a lot tenser and has way more cool ass car shots. But there is plenty of action in Novocaine including 2 chase sequences. One even involving an Ambulance. Maybe that is what made a connection between the films in my mind.

Now that I'm thinking about it, every shot in Ambulance looked like a fucking coolest shit ever. While Novocaine is kind of too safe and by the book to have any cool ass shots. Maybe this is how they could make it for so much less. I remember noticing in the car chases way too many shots from the inside and way too little from the outside. The cars themselves don't do much of anything interesting. And there was maybe only one stunt involving a car crash. While in Ambulance Bay went Bay and Bayhem!ed the fucked out of the entire city.

I guess this is how I would summarize this review: The trailer makes you think the film is a non-stop gory action comedy. But in fact it is a rather serious film, with action and with gore and with comedy. Don't expect it to be a Michael Bay film.

Happy Hacking!!!