Novocaine – REVIEW & COCKTAIL – The Martini Shot

Our favorite nepo baby Jack Quaid is looking to have quite the 2025. He already kicked the year off strong with Companion, a film I didn’t get a chance to talk about on this channel, but I would highly recommend it. Also, don’t watch anything past the first trailer. What is it with Hollywood and just spoiling the whole movie in their trailers? But anyway, Companion is a very fun dark comedy that is currently one of my favorite films of the year, which now brings us to Novocaine. Quaid is having his Bob Odenkirk moment, going against type to take on an action role that actually manages to carry some believability to it. In the film, Quaid plays a man with CIPA, a real disease that keeps him from feeling pain. So Quaid doesn’t have to put on this face of being a highly competent badass to be believable, allowing him to play to his strengths and kind of stumble his way towards success. This setup ends up being pretty fun…sometimes.

While Quaid is strong in the role and the concept leads to some fun ideas, this is still a pretty generic action movie when you step back and look at it as a whole. It does feel like the team behind the film thought the idea was strong enough to carry the bulk of the audience’s interest, and I think that’ll be true for a lot of people. But after seeing all the insane and enjoyable action films we’ve gotten in the past few years, much like our main character, I was left not really feeling anything.

So Nathan Caine (yep, you read that right) is a timid, dorky bank assistant manager who happens to have a condition where he can’t feel any pain, no matter how severe. This condition drives him to be pretty careful and reclusive, that is, until he falls for a co-worker named Sherry, who tries to pull him out of his shell. But Nathan’s sudden string of happiness is interrupted when his bank is robbed and Sherry is taken hostage. Not willing to give up his first real shot at romance, Nathan sets out on a quest to use his unlikely abilities to rescue the love of his past 24 hours.

Like I said, Jack Quaid is great for this kind of role. He’s a highly believable everyman and not who you would consider to be an action hero. It’s one thing to just look the part, but the way Quaid plays Nathan really drives it home. He’s not simply beating criminals with his fist, but using his condition in unconventional ways. This could be pulling a gun out of a fryer or coating his hands in broken glass to give himself a little edge. That being said, he’s not a full on tactical genius either. A lot of this movie is him getting the holy hell beat out of him while he tries to talk his way out of a lot of encounters in between getting his face smashed. Quaid is definitely perfect for the role, I just wish the role kind of gave him more. Outside of the aforementioned condition, he’s fairly one note and doesn’t have a lot more for him to develop with as the film goes along. Still, he’s the right guy for the job, and he does that job well.

The supporting cast doesn’t end up being the most developed either. I was excited to see Amber Midthunder in this since I really enjoy Prey, but she’s mostly just in a damsel role in this. The character has a bit more to her, which I won’t spoil for you, but once some more information comes to light, it doesn’t really add that much to the story. Ray Nicholson plays the lead bank robber; kind of just a another villain role for him because…well, look at the guy. Jacob Batalon was actually pretty good in this, probably the funniest character out of the bunch. Everyone else just kinda blends into their roles, not really standing out all that much. Like there’s two detectives tackling the case, and it’s the exact kind of dynamic you would expect. I’ve seen these same types of characters in Heart Eyes, The Beekeeper, and who knows how many other films. Genre archetypes are okay to include, just please do something interesting with them beyond the “one cop is serious, the other is more laid back” schtick.

That’s kind of my thing with this film: it never goes beyond expectations and the bare minimum most of the time. The action sequences, which are the film’s selling points, have some neat uses of the film’s concept, but the envelope is never really pushed far enough for me. These fights are presented pretty blandly, with no real interesting camera work or creative uses of the environment. They aren’t terrible, just not all that memorable. Sometimes it feels like the film forgot it had an R-rating, at least until the climax. I was hoping for way more bodily harm and insane injuries that Nathan could no-sell, but it never really goes as crazy as it probably could have. Plus, it’s not really as breakneck as I would have hoped, as there’s a lot of downtime for characters to either reveal new information or make jokes that unfortunately missed more than they hit. I felt like this could have worked better if this was just a tight 90 with little room for our character to breathe, but the stop and go nature of the narrative really makes it feel longer than it probably should. Then there’s just little plot details that feel kinda half-baked, like the planning of the robbery that kick-starts all of this and character actions that make no sense outside of the fact that the narrative needs these things to happen.

But to the film’s credit, I was able to kind of set these weaker points aside when the high points do come in. Novocaine is at its best when its main character is getting the crap kicked out of him and is forced to do some quick thinking. Jack Quaid does exactly what is needed from him, managing to be likable and believable enough to keep me engaged in his mission. But outside of the fight scenes, the movie is painfully forgettable with no real dashes of personality to bolster the straightforward narrative or characters. Not amazing, but not tiring. Fun, but not really worth a rewatch. Just one of those smack dab right in the middle movies. You probably won’t regret watching it, but you may also forget that you did. If there’s one thing you should take away from this, it’s to just watch Companion instead.

RATING

BLACK & BLUE

Sure, I could just pump a cocktail full of actual Novocain and call it a day (I know a guy), but what’s the closest I could get to that numbing power without going to jail or destroying my liver? The key is the long-running star ingredient of this channel: Electricdust. This sparkly powder made of buzz button plants generates a mouth tingling feel when ingested, whether it be in the cocktail or just on the rim. This special ingredient, paired with a nice and floral gin cocktail, make for quite the invigorating drinking experience. If you plan to have a few of these, be sure to baby proof the house first. Your mouth may be numb, but I assure you you’ll be feeling something in the morning if you aren’t careful.

INGREDIENTS

• 1oz gin
• 1oz maraschino liqueur
• 1oz lemon/ginger vermouth
• Dash of absinthe
• Barspoon of Electricdust
• Garnish: Lemon peel

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Add ingredients to a mixing glass with ice and then stir to chill.
2. Strain into rocks glass over large ice cube.
3. Garnish with lemon peel.