Feeling No Pain
Directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen
Starring Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson
Released March 14th, 2025
Rated R
Mild-mannered Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) lives with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA), a condition that prevents him from feeling physical pain. The opening moments of Novocaine chronicle the monotonous steps Nathan has to take on a daily basis to ensure he doesn’t unwittingly injure himself. Should Nathan step on a nail or bite though his tongue, he would only become aware if and when he noticed all of the blood. CIPA is a real, rare condition, but this movie is not concerned with realism in the slightest; instead, it presents Nathan’s condition as a superpower which aids him in rescuing a woman for whom he has feelings.
This woman is Sherry (Amber Midthunder), who works at a Credit Union alongside Nathan. They do not seem to know each other very well, and I believe Nathan is the vice President of the Credit Union for which they both work, but this does not stop Nathan from asking Sherry out on a date. The date goes well, and Nathan is a happy man the following day at work. He’s excited to see Sherry, whom he says is the girl of his dreams. He’s less excited to see gun-toting, Santa Claus costume-wearing bandits burst into their workplace. The leader of this gang of jolly old elves, Simon (Ray Nicholson), demands that Nathan give him the code to access the safe. Nathan refuses and is beaten to a pulp.
We’ve seen plenty of bank robberies in movies, but I’m not sure we have seen the robbery of a Credit Union. It turns out, there is not much difference. The robbers take Sherry hostage and escape before the police can capture them. This is when Nathan Caine, the man who cannot feel pain, resolves to do anything he can to rescue Sherry, the woman he says he loves. I found it a tad creepy that Nathan continually professes his love for this woman he barely knows, and that he goes through such a deadly gauntlet on her behalf. He doesn’t stop for a moment to take her feelings into consideration, instead treating her as a prize to be won at the completion of his dangerous and ill-advised journey. It’s hard to root for them to end up together when the would-be romance feels so one-sided.
Nathan asks for help from his online gaming friend Roscoe (Jacob Batalon), which leads them to meet in person for the first time. Roscoe’s entrance is treated as a big reveal, and there was a smattering of applause from the audience when Jacob Batalon showed up. This is an actor who has a lot of goodwill from audiences, and he’s fine here, offering up a few funny lines. One of the more successful nepo babies, Jack Quaid flashes the million-dollar smile he inherited from his parents Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, but he cannot elevate the material enough through charisma alone to make the experience worthwhile. Amber Midthunder is fine as Sherry, but one wishes they would have given her character more agency. Jack’s son Ray Nicholson mugs for the camera as the heavy, and truthfully the script doesn’t ask him to do anything more. Betty Gabriel and Matt Walsh play cops investigating the robbery and kidnapping, and there is a scene in which one of the cops gives a citizen their gun, telling them to use it to kill a suspect, since the cop is injured and cannot do it themselves. It’s one of the more gobsmackingly ridiculous moments in a film that I can recall.
Nathan does not have a background involving a mastery of weaponry or a secret martial arts expertise, and yet he is able to hold his own against his aggressors due to his medical condition. I understand that realism is not what filmmakers Dan Berk and Robert Olsen are shooting for here, but just because one cannot feel pain does not make one a superhero. If you were gravely injured, as Nathan is time and again during his quest, I imagine you’d lose consciousness from blood loss alone. I could have looked past the lack of plausibility of the film had it been riotously funny and the action scenes impressive. But that is not the case. Lars Jacobson’s screenplay is painfully unfunny, and the action scenes lean into more gross-out material than dazzling stunt work. Had this been a low budget independent film it may have offered up some charm, but as it is it is too slick to come across as hip. Nathan Caine may not feel pain, but you may if you try to sit through Novocaine.