Novocaine Review: A One-Man Army Love Story That Feels No Pain (2025)

Film Title: Novocaine
Cast: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson, Jacob Batalon, Conrad Kemp, Garth Collins, Evan Hengst
Directors: Dan Berk & Robert Olsen
Writers: Lars Jacobson
Distribution: Streaming on Binge (Australia) + more
Production: Paramount Pictures (presents), Infrared (Infrared Pictures, in association with) Domain Entertainment (II) (in association with)
Release Date: March 8, 2025 (Theatrical) | November 2024 (Streaming – Binge AU)
Review by: Mother of Movies

The first thing that grabs you about Novocaine isn’t the premise, though a bank manager who can’t feel pain going full vigilante is inherently compelling; it’s the soundtrack. This film opens with a killer selection of tracks that immediately signal you’re in for something special. Something that understands the alchemy of tone and tempo. Directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsenv know how to marry sound to vision, and here they’ve crafted a Christmas-set action romance that feels like Bloody Hell crashed into John Wick at a holiday party. Except here, no one had their dog killed.

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When Love Hurts (But You Can’t Feel It)

Jack Quaid plays Nate, a second-in-command bank manager with congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP). A rare genetic condition that means he’s never felt a stubbed toe, a paper cut, or eaten solid food. His life is measured in alarm intervals. He even has one to remind him to visit the bathroom. He’s tattooed himself extensively, not out of rebellion but because he can. Like a story he had drawn on himself, a permanence to feel and to remind him that he has one. He’s also convinced he’ll never find love, because how do you connect with someone when you’re fundamentally numb to the world?

Enter Sherry (Amber Midthunder, continuing her streak of magnetic performances), a woman with her own scars, both literal and figurative. She’s a cutter, someone who’s been searching for pain as a way to feel alive. Their meet-cute is the kind of lightning-in-a-bottle moment that rom-coms dream of.

Sherry asks Nate to lunch as an apology for spilling her coffee on him. For the first time in his life, he throws caution to the wind: eating solids could cause him to chew off his own tongue. But Sherry dismisses his lifelong fear, and he takes a bite of the cherry pie. The way Quaid plays this scene, you’d think he just discovered color. Suddenly, Nate is singing, tasting fruit, seeing the world through a lens that isn’t clinical survival.

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They sleep together that first night. The chemistry is immediate; the connection seems genuinely sincere. Sherry tells him,

“Everybody’s just looking for someone they can show what they’re hiding to.”

Quote from Sherry played by Amber Midthunder in the Anti-holiday film “Novocaine”

And it’s the kind of line that lands because both actors sell the vulnerability underneath.

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Santa Claus Is Coming to Rob You

The next day, Nate’s at work when a crew of bank robbers dressed as Santa storms in. It’s peak festive chaos, the kind of visual gag that could’ve been played for cheap laughs but instead becomes genuinely tense. The lead robber, Simon (Ray Nicholson, channeling his father’s menace with his own brand of cold calculation), demands the code to the vault. When Nate’s boss Nigel refuses, Simon shoots him in the head without hesitation. Then he calls out to the staff looking fr someone else with the code.

Nate, who gets smacked around, absorbing blows that should drop him but don’t. Because Nate can’t feel pain, he doesn’t react the way a normal hostage would; he just keeps getting back up, stone-faced, until he finally gives up the code.

Then Simon’s crew kidnaps Sherry.

This is where Novocaine shifts gears from quirky romance to one-man-army thriller, and it does so without losing the tonal balance that makes it work. Nate steals a police car and gives chase, his genetic condition suddenly transforming from disability to superpower. The action choreography here is inventive; Berk and Olsen understand that Nate’s inability to feel pain doesn’t make him invincible; it makes him reckless. He takes damage that would incapacitate anyone else, and the film revels in the dark comedy of watching him stumble through fights. His bones break, bullets embed, and all while he just keeps going.

There’s a sequence where Nate tracks down one of the robbers, Ben (Evan Hengst), to a tattoo parlor. The ensuing fight features slow-motion shattered glass, brutal hand-to-hand combat, and a preparation technique involving smashing glass into your fists that I’ve only seen once before (in the underground wrestling horror Dark Match). It’s visceral, inventive, and completely committed to the bit. Fans of extreme violence will find plenty to savor here. Later, another member of Simon’s team pulls Nate’s fingernails off with pliers in a scene that somehow twisted into humour.

The Underdog Who Couldn’t Stay Down

What makes Novocaine more than just a gimmick is Jack Quaid’s performance. He’s always had an everyman quality. Slightly awkward, inherently likable, but here he leans into something deeper. Nate isn’t a traditional action hero. He’s understated and almost nerdy-looking until the film lets you see him through Sherry’s eyes. His tattoos become art, his perseverance becomes heroism, and his ethical core, established early when he lets a newly widowed man keep his house over Christmas despite a foreclosure order. Everything plots out the foundation of his character. He’s not fighting because he’s trained or because he’s seeking revenge. He’s fighting because he finally found something worth protecting, and he refuses to let it go.

His gamer friend Roscoe (Jacob Batalon, bringing warmth and comic relief) becomes his unlikely sidekick. Roscoe helps him track down leads and even rescues him from a booby-trapped apartment that nearly kills him multiple times. The film plays these moments for laughs. You believe Nate could die at any moment, even if he can’t feel the injuries piling up.

The score, while a bit generic in its energetic action cues, never overwhelms the scenes. The real star is the soundtrack, which pulses through the film like a second heartbeat, grounding the absurdity in something emotionally resonant.

A Christmas Miracle Wrapped in Broken Bones

By the time the third act rolls around, this anti-holiday movie has fully committed to its blend of romance, action, and dark comedy. There’s a car chase that ends in a spectacular slow-motion crash, the kind of sequence that feels both fresh and comforting. Nate’s body is a map of trauma by this point, bones jutting at wrong angles, blood everywhere, and yet he keeps moving. The film doesn’t shy away from the grotesque reality of his condition; it leans into it, using practical effects to show just how much punishment a human body can take when pain isn’t a deterrent.

The ending (which I’ll save for the spoiler section) delivers both catharsis and surprise. It wraps up character arcs in ways that feel earned rather than convenient. Roscoe’s final line, “It’s a Christmas miracle”, lands because the film has spent its runtime ensuring the characters all have the screentime they need. It’s funny in a laugh-out-loud way as well as hitting you in the feels. And you’ll laugh and feel guilty too, which is just the way I like it.

Why This Works When It Shouldn’t

Novocaine is the kind of film that could’ve easily collapsed under the weight of its own premise. A pain-free protagonist, a Christmas heist, a romance built on deception, these are ingredients that require precise calibration to avoid tonal whiplash. But Berk and Olsen, along with screenwriter Lars Jacobson (who’s clearly learned from the missteps of Day of the Dead: Bloodline), manage to thread the needle. The film is funny without being flippant, violent without being nihilistic, and romantic without being saccharine.

It helps that the cast is uniformly excellent. Amber Midthunder brings layers to Sherry that could’ve been one-note in lesser hands, and Ray Nicholson makes Simon genuinely menacing even when he’s dressed as Santa. The supporting cast, Batalon, Kemp, Collins, and Hengst, all commit fully to the film’s heightened reality, selling every absurd beat with straight-faced conviction.

Thematically, Novocaine is about finding connection in a world that’s designed to isolate us. Nate’s condition is a metaphor for emotional numbness, and Sherry’s self-harm is a desperate attempt to feel something. Their relationship, however it begins, becomes a lifeline for both of them, a reminder that vulnerability, even when it hurts, is what makes us human. It’s a surprisingly tender message wrapped in a film that features a man using an EpiPen for adrenaline boosts and fighting through a Christmas season that would kill anyone else.

If you’re looking for a film that delivers feel-good carnage, underdog heroics, and a romance that’s anything but normal, it’s streaming now on Binge (Australia) and is worth every minute of your time. It’s the kind of movie that reminds you why you fell in love with cinema in the first place. Because sometimes, the best stories are the ones that make you feel everything, even when the protagonist can’t.

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Rating & Verdict

Novocaine is rated:
4.5 Cherry Pies Worth Breaking Every Bone For out of 5

This is a film that understands the assignment and then exceeds it, delivering a one-man-army thriller with genuine heart, inventive action, and a romance that earns every emotional beat. It’s feel-good carnage at its finest, and it deserves to find its audience. For more films from the Paramount studio platform, visit their official website. For violent movies set at Christmas, check out: Mother of Movies’ 8 Xmas flicks, or Adult Swim Yule Log hit us up on Facebook for more recommendations.

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