Imagine being shot, stabbed by an arrow and a knife, beaten and then burned.
Oh, and getting your fingernails ripped off by pliers and your hand completely torn off the bone, hanging solely by skin. The catch — you don’t feel any of it.
The action and thriller movie “Novcaine,” released on March 14, tells the story of Nathan — Nate — Caine, an assistant bank manager. Nate suffers from congenital analgesia, a disease in which an individual is born with the inability to feel pain.
Growing up, Nate was held back from sports and other activities to avoid the risk of life-threatening injuries he couldn’t feel. This created the introverted and awkward personality he carries into his adult life.
Though I understand the commitment to safety from injury, Novocaine was often unrealistic and over-exaggerated.
The opening montage walks viewers through Nate’s daily routine at work, avoiding every hot surface and pointy piece of furniture with tennis balls cut to cover sharp corners.
A bit much if you ask me.
After successfully avoiding all things “risky,” Nate finds himself swooning over his employee, Sherry Margrave, who he’s been eyeing across the office for months.
Sherry is the epitome of any movie girl in her early twenties just trying to keep her office job — witty, pretty and, of course, late to her work meeting.
While the romance entertained me, it often made me grimace from the constant cringy scenes.
One of Sherry’s first quotes is something along the lines of “Sorry for being late, am I going to lose my job?” followed by a pouty face that made me bury my face under my sweatshirt.
Another movie attempting to make a boss-employee relationship feel fun and not weird at all. Wow, I’ve never seen that in a movie before.
The two go out for lunch and are met by one of Nate’s childhood bullies. It’s here that the nickname “Novocaine” is revealed, a name given to Nate growing up when kids could beat him up without him feeling it.
One cringy scene where Nate reveals his book-obsessed nerdy boy personality at his house with Sherry, and now the pair decide they are obsessed with each other. So realistic.
That is, until Sherry is taken by a group of thieves as a “hostage” in a massive robbery and shooting at the bank where they work, which left many, including Nate, injured, if not dead. Immediately, I’m nothing but confused.
Hoping to save his 24-hour-lover, Nate has to chase after her. He may be left beat up and bloody after the attack — but you know, he’s fine.
Between stealing a cop car and enduring an uncomfortable amount of injuries, Nate somehow makes it to Sherry’s location. While I always love action movies, the constant bloody scenes made this one repetitive.
However, the ongoing seemingly painful attacks that Nate couldn’t feel added a humorous element to the movie. Like when he purposely burns his hand in hot oil, but acts as if nothing happened.
The whole movie is basically a montage of gory action scenes and a measly attempt at a superhero movie. What certainly didn’t help — the random side characters. Between calling a random friend to come help for maybe thirty minutes of the movie and the killing scenes that took up 75% of the movie, the movie felt dragged on and random at times.
It was easy to expect what happened next, and was so unrealistic that even people in the movie theater were loudly expressing their confusion with loud “Ews.” Nate gets probably every bone in his body broken and has at least three open wounds at the end of the movie, yet he can still get up and fight a jacked bad guy?
I’m no doctor, but come on.
I have to give it to the directors, the movie plot of a unique superhero was creative. But it was hard to appreciate the creative element when so many random events took place. For instance, we find out one of the characters is essentially a psycho who was plotting against Nate the whole time.
This whirlwind of a movie was fun to watch solely for its humorous gore and unrealistic romance that made me both giggle and raise an eyebrow at times.