Novacaine

Jack Quaid is starting off 2025 with a bang, this man was in 2 films released earlier this year. Companion, and Novacaine. I was not super impressed with Companion but Novacaine looked quite funny so I am hopeful I like this man in something this year. The final season of the Boys is still kind of far off so this is the closest we are going to get to Huey for a while.

Starting the film with Everybody Hurts is amazing. Jack plays Nathan Caine, an assistant bank manager. He is very moony eyed over this bank teller and for those of you who don’t know what the kicker is, he has a medical condition where he can not feel physical pain.

He has a marker in his shower for how hot the water can be, he pours his coffee over ice, there are tennis balls on every corner of his house and office.

He starts hanging out with this girl and starts showing him that there is more to life than locking yourself in a bubble. And she asks the question, “if you can’t feel pain, does that mean you can’t feel pleasure?”. Genuinely a good question, but that leads to an incredibly charged scene that was very well directed.

Jack Quaid is kind of super hot with tattoos. And he’s still his adorkable self so the combination is working really great in this film.

The bank that these two work at gets held up. And obviously beating the shit out of Nathan doesn’t work but when his girl tries to come to his defence she gets herself in trouble. And Act 2 focuses on him going after her. Great act structure, incredible flow from one section to the next.

A guy that can’t feel pain is such a great premise for an action hero. Him picking up the burning hot cast iron skillet is seriously great. Kind of the same energy as Deadpool without the super strength so you get to watch the hero get his ass kicked without any real consequences. Except there are consequences; he just can’t feel them. Nathan is definitely gonna get himself killed going after this girl. He totally just stuck his hand in boiling oil.

I definitely would not watch this if you are squeamish, there is a lot of gross happening right now. The digging around in his arm for the bullet was very hard to watch.

Okay I was wondering why they would take a hostage with them, turns out she's the ring leader's sister. What a great twist. And she only slept with Nathan to attempt to get the bank code out of him and now he is going to get himself killed trying to save her. Fantastic, love the twist, it's great.

The scene where he punches glass to get it embedded in his skin I couldn’t even watch, shit gets pretty graphic. Followed by a tattoo needle to the neck HOLY SHIT. Even the sound of the tattoo needle is a little rough cause I know how much that hurts.

Jack Quaid is such a great leading man, I would love to see him in an actual romantic comedy or a horror film. I really want to see him stretch his range a little but. He is just so good.

Because of his unique physique these action sequences get to be choreographed in a much more interesting way than most action movies. He finally reaches his destination and his worldview is about to explode. This poor man.

Okay I really wasn’t expecting much out of this movie. I thought it might be a funny, good time and it really exceeded my expectations. Jack Quaid truly is phenomenal and I really hope he’s in more stuff. Overall I give Novacaine a really solid 8/10 I think it is worth the watch and it is something that I would show people.