Novocaine toys with a moral tightrope, inviting its audiences to revel in over-the-top violence under the guise of rooting for a mild-mannered protagonist. Directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, working from a script by Lars Jacobson, lean into this dynamic with full awareness, crafting a film that explores how far they can push an audience’s willingness to endorse extreme brutality when it’s carried out by someone coded as a decent person. It’s a question that has been asked before in action and revenge cinema, but Novocaine takes a more playfully sadistic approach, testing just how much carnage a protagonist can inflict while still maintaining the audience’s sympathy.
The answer? Pretty far, as long as the narrative maintains the illusion of justification. The film cleverly balances its violent excesses with a protagonist who is impossible to dislike. By making Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) not just a victim of circumstance but also a deeply awkward and well-meaning loner, the film ensures that audiences stay on his side, even as he embarks on a path of escalating brutality. Berk and Olsen understand that the spectacle of violence is more palatable when filtered through an underdog story—one where the audience can laugh, cheer, and revel in the carnage without feeling complicit.
A Protagonist Built for This Premise
Nathan Caine (Quaid), an assistant manager at a San Diego trust credit union, lives with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA). His condition makes it impossible for him to feel physical harm, shaping a life of caution and self-imposed isolation. His daily routine is rigid, built around reminders to eat, drink, and relieve himself since his body lacks natural warning signals. The film opens with R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” playing over Nathan’s morning rituals—blending his food to avoid biting his tongue and methodically ensuring his bladder doesn’t rupture—a moment that sets a tone of subtle, deadpan humor before the film pivots into full chaos.
When his co-worker Sherry (Amber Midthunder) takes an interest in him, Nathan hesitates, unsure of how to navigate intimacy. Their relationship takes a turn after they prank one of Nathan’s many childhood bullies and spend the night together. Having a shift in his confidence following this, Nathan sees the burgeoning relationship go haywire when armed robbers stage a heist in the bank and take Sherry hostage. Nathan, with little plan and no experience, impulsively steals a police car to chase them down, intent on rescuing Sherry.
Violence as Spectacle
The film structures Nathan’s journey around his physical imperviousness, presenting it as both an asset and a source of grotesque spectacle. His pursuit of the gang takes him through increasingly brutal confrontations, including one in a restaurant kitchen where he kills a robber only after enduring severe burns in a deep fryer. Later, a booby-trapped house leaves him ensnared and at the mercy of another gang member. He’s only saved by Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), a longtime online friend he has never met in person, who mistakes Nathan’s desperate call for help as an invitation to finally meet face-to-face.
Batalon delivers a solid supporting performance that recalls his scene-stealing charm in the MCU’s Spider-Man films. More importantly, Roscoe’s decision to come to Nathan’s aid reinforces how inherently likable Nathan is, despite his social awkwardness. That likability is crucial, as it keeps audiences on his side even as his actions become increasingly extreme.
The film doubles down on the idea that Nathan’s ability to withstand pain allows it to indulge in excess. He endures gruesome injuries that would incapacitate anyone else, yet the spectacle of his endurance becomes part of the film’s twisted appeal. It also justifies, at least narratively, the equally extreme violence he inflicts in return. The audience find themselves almost compelled to cheer when Nathan delivers kill shots because the people on the receiving end are thoroughly, irredeemably bad.
But the film doesn’t stop there—it ensures Nathan’s own injuries are just as severe, as if maintaining equilibrium. His battered body provides a kind of moral counterbalance, making the punishment he doles out feel less gratuitous.
Of Likability and Organic (Onscreen) Chemistry
Quaid’s performance is key to selling this balance, particularly in how he navigates the film’s offbeat comedic tone. While many actors might lean into exaggerated swagger for a character in his position, Quaid instead taps into an awkward introversion that betrays a genuine longing for connection. He doesn’t need to channel Ryan Reynolds’ wisecracking antihero persona; his comedic timing is rooted in discomfort rather than bravado, making Nathan a far more endearing lead than the film’s body count might suggest.
This offbeat approach also informs his chemistry with Midthunder, which is both palpable and, for the most part, organic. Their dynamic—rooted in mutual loneliness rather than a forced romantic arc—gives the film an emotional throughline, making the audience genuinely want them to stick together by the end. In a film filled with bloodshed and absurdity, it’s their connection that grounds it just enough to keep the chaos from becoming a hollow spectacle.
Even as the film complicates Sherry’s role in the narrative, it quickly reorients itself, ensuring that her connection with Nathan remains genuine. Midthunder, a couple of years removed from her star-making turn in Prey, is a welcome presence, even though her character initially risks presented as a damsel in distress. The script spares her from that fate, allowing her role to evolve in a way that, while somewhat predictable, remains effective.
‘Novocaine’ and the Comfort of Justified Carnage
Novocaine is part of a growing wave of films that push audiences to accept extreme violence when it’s directed at the “right” targets. It follows in the footsteps of movies like Monkey Man, Deadpool, and Boy Kills World, where hyperviolence is justified through the framing of its victims as irredeemable villains. This narrative device is nothing new, but Novocaine executes it with a gleeful, almost surgical precision, making sure that every moment of brutality feels earned within its own heightened world.
What sets Novocaine apart is its emphasis on physical comedy woven into its carnage. Nathan’s condition makes him uniquely suited for the genre’s absurdity—his inability to feel pain means that his injuries, while grotesque, often land with an undercurrent of dark humor. A moment where he barely reacts to impaling his own hand on an awkwardly thrown knife exudes the same matter-of-fact energy as him struggling to eat a slice of lemon. This absurdist streak keeps Novocaine from sinking too deeply into the bleakness that often accompanies films of its ilk. Instead, it embraces a lighter, almost slapstick quality amid the carnage, reinforcing its identity as an offbeat, blood-soaked crowd-pleaser.
For all its energy and technical competence, Novocaine never fully interrogates the implications of its own premise. The film rides on its protagonist’s likability, ensuring the audience never questions whether his actions cross a line. It’s entertaining, even charming at times, but its length (110 minutes) stretches a concept that might have been sharper in a tighter runtime. While it provides a visceral thrill, it leaves behind an uneasy aftertaste—one that stays longer than its bruises.
A self-described cinephile who can’t stop talking—and writing—about films. Paul also moonlights as ghostwriter and editor for a few memoirs. He currently resides in the Philippines.
