Warning: SPOILERS for Novocaine.
Jack Quaid’s big superpower in Novocaine is sometimes more of a curse than a blessing, but it also leads to some really cool movie moments. Novocaine’s main superpower of pain insensitivity is definitely based on a real condition, but that doesn’t mean it has to be presented with complete medical accuracy. In the lead-up to Novocaine’s ending, protagonist Nate goes through any number of traumas that he likely shouldn’t survive. But for the purposes of an action movie, a lot of them serve the genre in entirely unique ways.
Nate has no way of foreseeing Novocaine’s biggest twist when he first embarks on his adventure to save the woman he loves, but he’s willing to do literally anything to get her back. Nate takes constant abuse throughout nearly every scene in the movie, but he sometimes manages to turn that to his advantage. And that’s where Novocaine manages to truly stand out from other action movies, with certain scenes particularly showcasing what makes Nate different from other action heroes.
8
The Hot Shot
Ghost Pepper Sauce Isn’t So Bad
Nate’s entire motivation throughout the movie is wanting to see Sherry come home safe. And before he learns that Sherry was actually in on the robbery from the beginning, Nate trusts her as one of the few people who truly respects him in spite of a medical condition that he considers freakish and unworthy of discussion. While her apparent betrayal hits him hard late in the movie, her early scenes give him a chance to show off his ability in a rather humorous fashion.
Although this scene isn’t technically Nate’s doing, the way he swishes the shot around like mouthwash helps sell its comedy while setting him up for even more hardened choices later.
Early on, Nate runs into a childhood bully at a bar while on a date with Sherry. When he returns from the bathroom, it appears that Sherry has started flirting with his nemesis. However, things turn when Sherry suggests Nate and his bully become friends by doing shots together. It’s quickly revealed that she’s actually asked the bartender to fill the glasses with 2 ounces of five-alarm ghost pepper sauce. Although this scene isn’t technically Nate’s doing, the way he swishes the shot around like mouthwash helps sell its comedy while setting him up for even more hardened choices later.
7
Deep-Fried Vengeance
A Skin Graft Is A Small Price To Pay
Nothing in Jack Quaid’s positive review streak has ever contained anything as outlandish as the moment in Novocaine when he deep-fries his own hand to grab a gun that’s fallen into a vat of grease. However, Nate’s kitchen fight against Ben contains a lot of enjoyable lead-up to its signature moment. Most notable is the moment in which Nate swings an iron pan at his assailant, only for Ben to learn the hard way that the pan is still piping hot.
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But the later shot of Nate reaching into hot grease to grab the gun becomes one of the most intentionally memorable scenes of the movie. The state of Ben’s deep-fried hand receives multiple references throughout the film, and even the very end includes a moment where Nate’s friend Roscoe asks him to consider wearing a glove to cover his skin graft. The moment with the frying pan is a show of Nate’s intelligence, but it’s the grease that really shows off his ability to fight through what anybody else would consider debilitating pain.
6
Fun With Superglue
It Really Does Stick On Every Surface
There’s a scene in numerous action movies where the hero, having been shot, has to stop and remove their own bullet before patching it up. But no movie pulls off that scene quite like Novocaine. After the first big fight of the movie, Nate finds a bullet hole in his shoulder and stops by a bank client’s general store to treat his wounds. While this is no big delight to his client, Nate treats the moment like any other Tuesday, which might arguably be the most action-hero attitude he adopts during the entire movie.
It’s not enough that he digs out the bullet with pliers we never see being sterilized, nor is it enough that he makes light banter while doing so. To make the store owner feel less queasy, Nate patches the wound with superglue that appears to dry instantly despite being surrounded by wet blood. And if that didn’t make him look hardcore enough, he follows this up by responding to nearly passing out from blood loss by simply taking an epinephrine shot and walking it off. That’s probably not what epinephrine’s really for, but Nate makes it look good.
5
Glass Knuckles
The Trailers Set This Up Perfectly
Anyone who watched the trailers probably wondered how Nate would prevail against the hulking giant Zeno he’s shown fighting in the previews. To the movie’s credit, Novocaine made good on this question by having Nate lose most of the fight. But a surprising turning point presents itself when Zeno throws Nate into a glass wall, leaving shards all over the floor.
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In an act so recklessly heroic it would give John McClane the shivers, Nate punches his fists right into the shattered glass to pepper his knuckles with shards. He then leaps toward his attacker, bringing his fists down to blind the man. While Nate has done many things at this point that no other action hero could likely pull off, there were at least some actions that other heroes might consider in moments of desperation. This is one of the biggest moments in which truly no other hero could accomplish what Nate’s doing without his particular numbness to pain.
4
Voluntary Torture
Funniest Version Of Hostel Ever Made
Midway through the movie, Nate tracks down the address of his first opponent, Ben. He quickly learns that Ben is a prepper who’s outfitted his house with an almost unbelievable number of booby traps. But when Ben’s brother, Andre, catches Nate suspended in a rope trap and figures out that he was the one who killed Ben. The lead’s only option to prolong his survival at that point is to subtly convince Andre to torture him rather than kill him right away.
But Nate’s sheer willingness to get tortured is one of his bravest actions in the movie, as he realizes that he might not survive by the end if things progress too far.
Novocaine’s torture scene isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s not particularly easy watching Nate have his fingernails ripped off or having knives hovering millimeters away from his eyeball. But Nate’s sheer willingness to get tortured is one of his bravest actions in the movie, as he realizes that he might not survive by the end if things progress too far. Still, watching Nate pretend to feel pain every step along the way strikes a darkly comedic tone that works in the movie’s favor, and it’s one of the best uses of the film’s main premise.
3
The Arrow-Head Kill
He Took An Arrow In The Knee
Even when Novocaine was presenting itself as one of 2025’s best upcoming movies, the trailers never made it clear how much surprising nerd appeal the movie would command. He is established as a gamer early on, so the scene in which Nate takes an arrow in the knee feels very much like a Skyrim reference when it first happens. However, things aren’t always what they seem, and Nate’s arrow injury pays off during a very unexpected moment.
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After Nate fails to waste enough of Andre’s time on fake torture, he’s saved from imminent death at the last minute by his friend Roscoe. This leads to an earnest fight between Andre and Nate, which ends when Nate kills Andre by pushing his knee arrow all the way through Andre’s skull without even taking the arrow out of his leg. It might feel more like something out of a Friday the 13th movie than your typical action flick, but the fact that it feels so unexpected for a movie of this sort is exactly what makes it work.
2
Shocked Through The Heart
He Gives Love A Rad Name
Despite Nate’s very apparent plot armor, there’s a scene toward the end where the movie wants viewers to believe that bad guy Simon might escape in a stolen ambulance. To stop this from happening, Nate forces Simon to crash the ambulance by attacking him with a defibrillator. The trick of it is that he doesn’t just attach the paddles to Simon. For reasons not made entirely clear, Nate only attaches one paddle to Simon while attaching the other to his own heart.
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It’s amazing enough that Nate survives this when it’s definitely unsafe to use a defibrillator outside the cardiac arrest, but Nate doesn’t even stop there. After he miraculously survives a flipping ambulance while being electrocuted, Simon retaliates by snapping Nate’s arm like a popsicle stick. Despite having already been through what must be extreme cardiovascular trauma, Nate compounds the issue by injecting epinephrine just to get a few more moments of fighting time. And that’s what leads to the film’s most truly hardcore kill scene.
1
The Literal Wolverine Claw
Marketing Foreshadowed This All Along
Nearly every trailer for Novocaine includes a moment in which Jacob Batalon’s Roscoe tells Jack Quaid’s Nate to remember that, in spite of his abilities, he isn’t Wolverine. He doesn’t have a healing factor, and he can absolutely die. But the truly unexpected payoff is when Nate performs a true Wolverine kill that only comic book fans could appreciate. It all comes down to how Wolverine’s adamantium claws actually work in the comics.
Although Wolverine wasn’t born with adamantium, he was still born with forearm bones that he can painfully push through his skin when he needs to attack more viciously. After Simon snaps Nate’s arm in half, Nate murders him by stabbing him through the head with his actual forearm bone. In this one brutal moment, Novocaine makes the most literal callback possible to that single Wolverine line. It’s a moment that makes it clear just how good Nate is at what he does, even if what he does isn’t always very nice.
Novocaine
8/10
- Release Date
-
March 14, 2025
- Runtime
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24 minutes
