Novocaine
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In the gleefully grisly action comedy Novocaine, Jack Quaid plays a sweet nerdy guy who does not experience physical pain.

He falls for a woman who's determined to get him to leave his safe, risk-averse life behind. That happens in a big and very bloody way when she gets kidnapped by bank robbers and he sets out to rescue her. I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about Novocaine on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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Joining me today is Jordan Cruciola. She's a writer and producer and the host of the podcast Feeling Seen on Maximum Fun. Hey, Jordan, welcome back. Hello. Thank you so much for having me once again. Always great. Also with us is Jordan Morris. He's a writer and podcaster who contributed to the upcoming comics anthology Godzilla vs. L.A.,

which is a charity project for LA Wildlife Relief. Hello, Jordan. Hi. I just want to say it's great to be here with y'all talking about a movie that's not about a deep-cut Spider-Man villain. There we go. Although, this movie could have used a little venom. This movie could have used a little bit of venom. He would have been right at home. Yeah, right? What movie could not use a little venom? I love that we're crossing the Jordans here. I love it whenever we cross the Jordan. They make me feel like Jill Hennessy over here.

Even more than baseline. Okay, let's do it. In Novocaine, Jack Quaid plays Nathan Cain, get it, who has a genetic condition that prevents him from experiencing physical pain. As a result, he's led a sheltered and cautious life. He's the assistant manager in a bank. He falls in love with Sherry, a free-spirited bank teller played by Amber Midthunder.

During a bank heist, she gets kidnapped and Nathan is determined to rescue her, leading to an escalating series of physical conflicts, which leave him bruised, battered, bloodied, and briefly deep fried, but undeterred. He's aided in his quest by his online friend Roscoe, played IRL by Spider-Man's Jacob Batalon. There's the Spider-Man connection. Novocaine is in theaters now. Jordan C. Jordan Cruciola, kick us off. What'd you think? I had a blast. I was laughing out loud.

out loud. And listen, I'm an easy mark. That's a true thing. But like, it was a Blitzkrieg trailer assault for this thing. It pre-rolled before any movie you've seen in the past few months. And I was like, I mean, this looks totally for me. Like, I hope it holds up over the course of the movie. I was pleasantly surprised at how it didn't become threadbare for me. And I remain fascinated

shocked at how completely charmed I am by Jack Quaid's whole deal.

Jack Quaid is like the exact right alchemy of the like toxic nerdy guy lead that has never worked for me before. But he is apparently the keystone to unlocking that. Companion, boys, this. Jack Quaid's doing it. Yeah, he's having a moment. And as much as I don't like the boys, I loved Companion. And I kind of loved him in this. Yes. Thumbs up. Thumbs up.

All right. Jordan Morris, hit me. What'd you think? Before my thoughts on the movie, I'd like to present a pre-prepared joke, if I may. Please do. Got it in the can. Uncan it. Yeah. So as you mentioned, this movie stars Jack Quaid, who's Dennis Quaid's son. It also features Ray Nicholson as one of the villains. He's Jack Nicholson's kid. I think they should have called this movie Nepovacaine. Oh, there we go. Was that worth doing? Was that worth doing? It was a long walk, but I'm glad we got there. The people

want to hear it. The people want to hear it acknowledged. Yeah, this is my lane for sure. I like a premise-y action movie. I like an upgrade. I like a crank. So this is kind of like in my zone. And there's a lot of fun stuff in it. I just think you should know before going into it, before the poop hits the fan, you get about a half an hour of a kind of a meh rom-com.

before the stuff starts. And Jack Quaid, I also love him. I think his whole deal is great. He's great in that Scream movie. He is great as the voice of Superman in My Adventures with Superman. He's great.

Everything about him should repel me based on a whole archetype I can't stand. Yeah. He is like the exception that proves the rule. He has an easy charm and they have great chemistry and it's kind of a hot chemistry too. They do, honestly. They are very fun to watch together. I think the rom-com portion of the script is not strong. There is a long, long bit where she's trying to get him to eat pie. Here we go. Yep. Taking a bite. Open your mouth. Okay. There.

Remember, chew softly. Yep. Let the magic happen. I could not wait for that to be over, despite the two of them being very fun to watch together. So I think that part of the movie isn't super strong. But once it gets going and you start fulfilling the promise of the premise, man who cannot feel pain has a lot of things happen to him. It's pretty fun and funny. Yeah, it kind of goes into a couple of cliches that

you know, maybe I rolled my eyes a little bit at, but the fun stuff is real fun. Okay. I mostly dug this. I kind of come down, I think, between you two. Something happened to me, though, while watching this movie that has never happened to me before, probably will never happen to me again. I started doing math, which... You brought out your graph paper. Math and I have a very checkered history. We avoid each other when we can. She knows why, but all of a sudden, I sat there...

And my brain was going for every minute this film were shorter, it would be precisely 1.5% better. And I don't know where that came from, but it is a conviction that I now kind of have stronger than steel. If this film currently clocks in at an hour and 50 minutes, this kind of movie should not do that. I know for a fact that if this film were, for example, 30 minutes shorter, it would be 45% better. That's just science. Yeah.

Now, I say that, but I completely disagree with you, Jordan Morris. I love how long it takes, somewhere between 15 to 20 minutes, I think, to set up the relationship between Nathan and Sherry in the beginning because they emerge as real people. She's a dream girl. She's not a manic pixie dream girl. I love Quaid. I love Amber Midthunder from Prey and from the weirdest television show in the last 10 years, Legion.

I loved all the time spent with him. Me. Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. On large, I contain multitudes. I wouldn't cut that stuff at all. I would cut much, most, most.

All of the third act, which is where this movie and the violence they're in, stops escalating and just plateaus and just repeats and repeats and repeats. And I have no problem with this movie in terms of dialogue, in terms of characters, in terms of actors. This is all purely a structural problem. I will say the reason I think it hung in there for me is because Ray Nicholson has become my favorite new person to see cast in a movie.

I am so compelled by him that the, like, five minutes that he had in Smile 2, he is so terrifying in that that I was like, God, I can't wait to see what else this guy can do. And this guy is a feral animal. He's not that big. He's a little bit wiry. But, like, his comportment and the way he carries himself, he really lifted for me. Yeah. We should say for our listeners that Ray Nicholson plays Simon, the lead bank robber. Mm-hmm.

And I was not familiar with Ray Nicholson before this, but I am now because I totally agree with you, Jordan. Like when he's on the screen, you can't help but look at him. I remember thinking this guy's bringing more heat, more intensity, more charisma to this very sketched out role. Like, you know, I mean, it's it.

It's interesting that this film is about a genetic condition. And you mentioned the nepo baby thing, Jordan. I mean, like, it turns out Riz is a genetic condition because this guy has it. It turns out. That villain role is pretty thin. They don't give him a tragic backstory. You don't, you know, learn about why, you know, why pain made him the way he is. He's just kind of a bad guy, but just through pure...

choices. He makes himself super fun to watch and super compelling. I know it's not super productive to criticize a movie for not doing a thing that you thought it should do, but didn't...

of feel like we were building to a twist where Ray Nicholson has the same condition that Jack Quaid does and we get two guys who can't feel pain just go into town on each other. I think you're too superhero programmed for that. You might be right. I think you're very superhero pilled to be like, oh, it's our glass unbreakable moment. That's Novocaine 2. Right. Yeah. He feels the pain, but he don't mind. Yeah. Exactly.

I think one of my issues with the film, I mean, this film plays very fast and loose with an actual genetic condition called congenital insensitivity to pain with anhydrous. Now the film ignores the anhydrous part. Anhydrous means basically you don't sweat. Here's the thing the movie still has to contend with. Even if no pain is involved,

there's still such a thing as like physics, right? Basic physics. And shattered bones and blood loss and organ damage would render the human body unable to move much less fight. But the movie doesn't want us thinking about that. So I think it takes the exact opposite tack that it should. Instead of just ratcheting things up and up and up to the point of absurdity, it does that thing where it plateaus. And what it's doing there is it's trying to have, give us a breather to let a semblance of...

logic and reality kind of reassert itself. In a movie like this, that's the death knell. Reality has no place in a movie like this. We never question how John Wick or any character played by Jason Statham keeps going because those movies never slow down. They never let up. This movie slows down and lets up. Looking at Jack Quaid evokes a different thing in your mind for what a person is capable of than when you're looking at a stave. Absolutely. That's a great point. You're like, look at Glass Joe over here. He's going to crumble like a house of cards. Yeah.

I will say, if you guys are hungry for that kind of escalation steadily throughout the movie, there is a lot of it. And the directors, they do a very good job of continuing to find things that would make you go, oh, yeah.

When you thought the last thing was the worst or most surprising thing you were going to see. They do sustain that clip for a long time. And there are a lot of very worthy, oh no, throughout the course of Novocaine that I was extremely satisfied by. The best bit in the movie, at some point Jack Quaid gets captured by the bad guys. Then they don't know that he has this condition and decide to torture him. And he has to fake like he's in pain. Yeah.

And it's a subtle little comedy job by him. And it's really funny. It's really funny. He's great in that moment. It's one of the better bits I've seen in a movie in a while. And I think all the slapstick in this movie really works. And I think that is great. We have to shout out that Jack Quaid is not only a Quaid, he's a Ryan.

His mother is Meg Ryan, and he got the right proportion of her charm. Like we said, is Riz an inheritable trait? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Something we should mention, this movie set during Christmas time. It is a Christmas movie! It's a Christmas movie. Thank you for pointing this out. Tired Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Wired Novocaine is a Christmas movie. Ha ha ha!

Well, we want to know what you think about Novocaine. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash pchh and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com slash nprpopculture. We'll have a link in our episode description. And that brings us to the end of our show, The Jordans. Jordan Morris, Jordan Cursiola, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. Yes, and thank you for having me. Merry Christmas, everyone. One and all.

And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Mike Katziff and edited by Jessica Reedy, and Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.

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