Novocaine review

NOVOCAINE: 

JACK QUAID ACTION-COMEDY IS OVER-THE-TOP FUN WITH ZERO PAIN! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Jack Quaid in Novocaine

 

            Jack Quaid (Logan Lucky, Scream (2022), Companion) is here to beat Adam Sandler’s Zohan at his own game (They both feel no pain) in the new action-comedy film, Novocaine. You bet your ass I was making comparisons to the 2008 Adam Sandler movie, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan when I saw the trailers for this film, both are about near-indestructible super-people except one becomes a hairdresser and the other is an action hero. 

            The movie looked fun and completely ridiculous given its premise, a man with a condition that makes him not feel pain going on a manhunt to rescue someone. Typical action movie plot but has a lot of gory and darkly comedic potential and yeah, that’s pretty much what we got. 

            This is a very silly, over-the-top movie with lots of wild action scenes, dark humor, and Jack Quaid giving goofy reactions to what happens in the film. For me, I quite enjoyed Novocaine and found it entertaining throughout as a dumb, fun action movie. 

            The film follows Nathan Caine (Quaid), a mild-mannered introvert working as an assistant manager at a bank who has a very unusual condition in which he doesn’t feel pain. But when a group of bank robbers (Dressed like Santa Claus) take his co-worker and love interest, Sherry Margrave (Amber Midthunder-Legion, Prey, Dream Scenario) hostage, Nathan uses his inability to feel pain as an unexpected weapon to fight off the criminals and rescue her. 

            The film also stars Ray Nicholson (Promising Young Woman, Licorice Pizza, Smile 2) as Simon Greenly, Jacob Batalon (Spider-Man franchise, Shortcomings, Tarot) as Nathan’s online gaming friend Roscoe Dixon, Betty Gabriel (The Purge: Election Year, Get Out, Upgrade) as Mincy Langston, Matt Walsh (Upright Citizens Brigade, Brigsby Bear, Widows) as Coltraine Duffy, and Craig Jackson (District 9, Black Sails, Blood Drive) as Nigel. 

            Overall, Novocaine mixes over-the-top brutal violence with dark, twisted humor kinda perfectly and is topped with an entertaining Jack Quaid performance resulting in a ridiculously fun time at the movies. It’s the kind of film where you know what you’re getting into when you see the trailer and it doesn’t try to be anything more than what it is. 

            It’s a goofy action movie with a lot of comedy and intense violence, but it also does sneak in some cleverness particularly with how Nathan perceives his condition and how the people around him see it as a special gift or something you’d see in a superhero movie (One of the characters even calls him a superhero and Batalon references Wolverine…at least in the trailer because that line is nowhere to be seen in the film). I like how the film sets up rules for his condition like he has to monitor his bladder with a timer on his watch and can’t eat solid food otherwise he might bite his tongue off by accident, it isn’t a special gift that includes some bullshit “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” message, it’s just a strange medical condition he has and he views it as such. 

            Jack Quaid plays this role perfectly; he is a genuinely charming and awkward character and not someone you’d expect to be an action hero. He’s not actively trying to kill people on his search to find his love interest and a lot of the laughs come from him reacting to what he had done during a fight like submerging his hand into a deep fryer to obtain a gun and accidentally shooting one of the criminals when he meant to intimidate him. 

            The action is a lot of fun and gets very creative with wince and cringe-worthy “Would Be” pain regarding the protagonist. Besides the already mentioned deep fryer gun scene, you have a sequence where Quaid is repeatedly punching the floor with shattered glass everywhere and slashing a man’s eyes out with the glass in his fists, Jacob Batalon throwing a knife but it impales Quaid’s hand and uses it to stab another man’s foot, and another scene that I can only describe as Home Alone: The R-Rated Cut complete with a house of booby traps, all good shit with plenty of variety. 

            I also enjoy Jack Quaid and Amber Midthunder’s romantic chemistry here which is like the bizarro, better version of Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose from Love Hurts. You legitimately buy their chemistry in the early scenes of the film and like seeing them interact with each other thus making you invested when Midthunder is eventually kidnapped by the robbers, despite this movie being set at Christmas and released in March, this is the better romantic action movie of 2025. 

            Adam Sandler may have done the “I feel no pain” routine first in You Don’t Mess with the Zohan and is quite funny, but Jack Quaid in this movie perfected the art of not feeling pain. Novocaine is a bloody, fun time with tons crazy action, laughs, and a pitch perfect Jack Quaid performance; a truly painless experience, but those who skip this film in theaters will feel pain caused by me when I come to their houses and beat their asses for missing it.