Get ready for some Jack Quaid overload in 2025. This isn’t a bad thing — we’re big fans of Quaid’s work on The Boys and Star Trek: Lower Decks– but the guy will practically be the face of first-quarter cinema next year. He’s starring in Companion, the creepy sci-fi movie from the producers that brought you Barbarian, and now he’s also going to be in Novocaine, a beautifully simple high-concept thriller from directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. How’s this for a plot line: It’s John Wick (or as close as you can get to John Wick when your protagonist has no training whatsoever) but with a lead character who cannot feel pain. Literally.
Quaid’s condition in this movie actually exists, known in the medical field as “congenital insensitivity to pain,” which has a large body of research dedicated to it. It’s thought to be related to the amount of endorphins created within the brain (and, bizarrely enough, the opioid rescue drug naloxone can cause some people to feel pain in certain cases), and it’s a genuinely terrible condition to have. Sure, you think it’d be dope not to feel any pain, but imagine burning yourself and not realizing you’ve got scalded, soon-to-be-infected skin as you go about your daily errands.
Still, it’s decent fodder for an action-comedy, so at least based on this trailer that Paramount dropped earlier on Thursday, it seems like a pretty good time at the multiplex.
Peep it:
Here’s a light and airy synopsis befitting a high-concept flick like this:
“When the girl of his dreams (Amber Midthunder) is kidnapped, everyman Nate (Jack Quaid) turns his inability to feel pain into an unexpected strength in his fight to get her back.“
Novocaine hits theaters on March 14. Also, the fact that no one at Paramount decided to set this trailer to Eels’ “Novocaine for the Soul” is just a flat-out insult to people born in the ’90s, who will likely make up most of the audience for this.