Novocaine (2025).

Review #2360: Novocaine (2025).

Cast: 

Jack Quaid (Nathan Caine), Amber Midthunder (Sherry Margrave), Ray Nicholson (Simon Greenly), Jacob Batalon (Roscoe Dixon), Betty Gabriel (Mincy Langston), Matt Walsh (Coltraine Duffy), Conrad Kemp (Andre Clark), Evan Hengst (Ben Clark), Craig Jackson (Nigel), and Lou Beatty Jr (Earl) Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen.

Review: 

"We always wanted this to feel like a throwback, and action movies back in the day used to take a little bit more time to meet the characters. They weren’t so scared of losing the audience’s attention back then.”

You may or may know that Congenital insensitivity to pain is a rare condition that select people suffer from. Shockingly, it apparently is important for people to feel pain in their upbringing, mostly in childhood, because people really do need to know if a burn injury is bad. Strangely enough, there is a place in Sweden (Vittangi) that has a cluster of people with the condition. This is the fifth film from the directing duo of Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, who made their debut in Body (2014) after having first met at NYU. The movie was written by Lars Jacobson, who had previously written Day of the Dead: Bloodline (2017), and he also served as an executive producer on this film. It was Berk and Olsen who stood firm on having the film start out as long as it does (about 25 minutes) as a romantic comedy rather than the straightforward action that the script had. They also had Jack Quaid in their mind when making their own pass at the story because of his role on The Boys*. Perhaps not surprisingly, they have stated their intent in trying to grab the magic left by films such as Lethal Weapon (1987) and Die Hard (1988) when it came to being "really funny but grounded". 

Well, it has been a bit of while since I got to remind myself of Nobody (2021), which you might remember had an absurd level of violence for a thriller that had its own little twist upon those awakening to kicking ass. Here you get a movie that happens to set itself in the Christmas season (Santa suit robberies) in San Diego**. This film has its own particular twist to move onto the breach of the everyman type of movie, which may or may not work depending on one's level of patience for a movie (110 minutes) that cannot even end cleanly enough. But as an action movie that seems to take its cues from horror in for a particular effect, it works just enough for me to at least recommend it as a curiosity. It is the kind of movie you'll find one day in the pile of action movies when shopping (or, sigh, when looking at a streaming service) and believe, yea, that might work out for a drunken stumble someday.*** The brutality of the action sequences is at least satisfying because you have a lead who basically isn't meant to flinch at any point, and Quaid manages to fit the bill of everyman charm that has to roll on improvisation from the very get-go as one ripped out of the proverbial shell of a life. Quaid and Midthunder make a worthy enough pairing to at least set the trap that arises with making decisions because screw it, you just want to (this is mostly a way of saying that some decisions made by people can be a bit silly but never too stupid). For a film that wisely knows to not have much of a body count, Nicholson leads the group of adversaries with varying levels of effective menace that arises in wayward planning and temperament that is semi-effective. Batalon at least delivers a smidge of wisecracks to carry the movie along a tiny bit, as is the case with Batalon and Walsh. Honestly, I wonder if the movie could've leaned in even more as a comedy, since it barely seems to really need a "narrative pull " (out of the- you know) when one has decided to lean away from being a clear-cut action movie. As it stands, it is sometimes funny but not nearly as consistent as it might have been, particularly since, well, it stretches itself to actually finish to where it ends up. As a whole, the less one knows, the better when it comes to going with a semi-solid action movie that tries to roll in warmth and lands mostly in the sweet-spot for general entertainment. Feeling something for a hero that can't feel the pain is a worthwhile goal to accomplish in the long run.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*I'm sure at least one of you know what The Boys is.

**I've never visited San Diego, but it is not Los Angeles, so fuck yeah, go Padres. I know the movie was shot in South Africa but hey, whatever.

***Movie Night does not endorse drinking, particularly since the shots I once took on November 7, 2022 tastes like lime. Besides, soda is cheaper.

Hell or High Water.

Review #1949: Hell or High Water.

Cast: 

Jeff Bridges (Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton), Chris Pine (Toby Howard), Ben Foster (Tanner Howard), Gil Birmingham (Texas Ranger Alberto Parker), Marin Ireland (Debbie Howard), Katy Mixon (Jenny Ann), Dale Dickey (Elsie), Kevin Rankin (Billy Rayburn), Melanie Papalia (Hooker), Amber Midthunder (Vernon Teller), Taylor Sheridan (Cowboy), and Margaret Bowman (T-Bone Waitress) Directed by David Mackenzie.

Review: 

"I find myself relating to stories that feel like they’re about characters who are struggling to deal with themselves in some way or another, more than I am about necessarily the worlds. In order for a story to kind of hit me, it’s much more about the people than it is of necessarily about the world."

Unsurprisingly, this is a film where more than one voice is crucial to how it came to pass as a memorable film of its time. David Mackenzie became a filmmaker after his study at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in his native Scotland. He made a couple of short films while being inspired by Danish cinema, specifically the Dogme 95 movement (another time). He made his debut in features with The Last Great Wilderness (2002). His films were either dramas or comedies, which ranged from work such as the erotic drama Young Adam (2003) or the prison feature Starred Up (2013). Hell or High Water is his ninth feature film and second American film. The movie was written by Taylor Sheridan, an actor-turned-writer. Under the working title of "Comancheria", it was his second film script, but it was his first sold. However, it was his first script in Sicario that ended up being made first, which was done in 2015 to general success. These films, alongside his later feature Wind River (2017), which he wrote and directed, is part of what he called a trilogy of "the modern-day American frontier." He has stated that the key influences in his writing were the Coen brothers along with Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry. When Mackenzie was sent the spec script as a spec project, he fell for it right away, admiring the "freewheeling vibe to it that I love in 70s movies"; of course, one would not be surprised to notice touches of the outlaw stories from the 1930s present here.

There is something quite interesting about the desolate eloquence that Mackenzie and Sheridan try to accomplish with such an easygoing crime thriller. It rides most of its strength on interesting characters and actors to inhibit these folks that seem as worthwhile to view that rolls its beat in mannerisms similar to No Country for Old Men (2007), although each film have their own approaches to the chase. Arguably, it outclasses that movie when it comes to overall execution from start to finish to earn its final resting spot that finds a worthy resolution to hang its hat on. It isn't a perfect movie, but it surely makes a captivating case for a suitable neo-Western in the eyes of those familiar with the frontier it reaches in its haunting elegy that has wide landscapes of West Texas and the folks that accompany it. The main drawing point is the dual storylines involves Pine with Foster to go alongside Bridges and Birmingham; no matter how one treats films by how much they need a clear-cut "hero" or "villain", it should work out pretty well regardless of one's patience for material such as this. Pine and Foster share a great rapport with each other as on-screen siblings that never seems inauthentic, with each actor managing to share the stage in terms of highlights. Pine is far more than the perception of low-key that one might think early on from him, mostly because he proves the most endearing figure in the long run. Foster and his volatile charisma prove just as watchable in terms of showing the other side of trying to commit what you might call the "perfect crime": the challenge of not becoming fully absorbed by the thrill of it all. Within the other side of the chase is Bridges, wracked in melancholy and withering strength that makes for quite a pairing with Birmingham, one that sees them insult each other in ways familiar with bonds formed through work (which results in a bit of humor before a sobering climax). There are numerous sequences one can highlight in the film as being effective beyond the heist, such as the opening robbery sequences, which each involve quiet settings being disrupted by sudden action. Or one could highlight a sequence in the diner that sees a makeshift robbery and a small scene of warmth between Pine and Mixon. Of course, the porch sequence in the end of the film is a good one in simmering tension and fateful finishing that works exactly to what Sheridan intended when it comes to endurance, as reflected by the grisly handling of the climax. It is ultimately a movie about how much a bond between people can take them depending on the circumstances, whether that means the bond between a parent to do better for their children, a sibling doing something out of affection for their sibling or more. 

The 102-minute runtime is handled effectively in the elements that matter within its genres of crime drama and neo-Western, utilizing familiar beats within each genre involving characters that seem quite real and useful to the landscape of story and setting. In the end, it is a heist movie, but it is a heist movie with the story of the ones doing it and (eventually) why being at the forefront, which works splendidly. It is a crackerjack type of thriller - the outcome never seems to be drawn out to the point of absurdity nor is it too reliant on complexity to make the proceedings irrelevant. In short, it is a mature kind of thriller, one with grizzled characters that matter to us with enough action and general charm to make it a surefire classic.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Welcome to New Directors Month: Volume II. January 2022 will attempt to cover ground not covered in January 2022, which spotlighted thirteen directors not covered by Movie Night before, which has featured over 1,000 directors as we enter Season XIII - that January started with Erich von Stroheim and closed with Alejandro Jodorowsky. The next film up will certainly cover new ground...in world cinema.