Novocaine

source: Novocaine

I rented Novocaine because I like Steve Martin and Helena Bonham Carter and also because I knew nothing about the movie. I enjoyed it and it never bored me at any moment. The movie seems to be characterized as a "black comedy", but I felt it was more of a satire. I think Novocaine is commenting on the struggle we all quietly face between living a safe, conventional life and pursuing our fantasies. Frank Sangster (Steve Martin) seems to have it all, money and a beautiful fiancé, with the only glimpse of discontent being and old French movie he plays for the patients, but which is probably more for him. When the sultry Susan (Helena Bonham Carter) sits in his dental chair, his fantasies are suddenly triggered. While most men (all?) would sympathize with Frank for his temptation, we are led to believe its cause is more of a gigantic moment of weakness, not because he's unhappy with his fiancé, Jean (Laura Dern). Also, while Frank is certainly a victim, there's nothing particularly noble about his actions during the film and you don't completely sympathize with him. And even when he achieves his "fantasy", it is so clichéd and paid for at such a high price, the movie doesn't ennoble Frank's fantasy. On one hand, the movie seems to be about pursuing one's dreams, but it's fairly cynical about it. One of the best aspects of the movie is the effort given to the minor characters. It felt like they tried to give everyone something interesting to do. Even Kevin Bacon shows up for a small, but very funny part. Some of the movie is predictable and implausible, but there were enough surprises to keep it interesting and if I want complete believability I'll watch a documentary. If there was any weakness in the movie, it's that, while we can understand Frank falling for Susan, there's not enough effort given to make it convincing that Susan had really fallen for Frank. This may have been on purpose early in the movie, to keep you guessing about Susan's intentions, but there should have been one scene before the movie is over which tells you why she wants to be with him. And the movie is a bit thin overall on the motivations and personality of Susan. She is apparently a drug addict and having a "difficult" relationship with her brother, but this is passed over too little. If you want to watch something a bit different, sort of an "anti-Roxanne", this might be worth renting. On the other hand, if you fear going to the dentist, you may wish to take care.

In my opinion, Novocaine had a brilliant trailer, but the film was a big disappointment. The first time I saw the trailer on a video rental, I knew I had to see Novocaine. I was expecting a Cohen Brothers style film of sharp wit and beautiful surreality. What I got was 'try hard' wit and ridiculous implausibility. Now this really p****s me off because I love Steve Martin, I love Laura Dern, I love Helena Bonham Carter and I love Kevin Bacon. I really expected more from a cast of very talented, very experienced actors. This basically means that the fault didn't lie with the cast. It lay with the severe implausibility of the story . SPOILERS IMMINENT!! REPEAT, SPOILERS IMMINENT!! At the film's beginning, Steve Martin's engaged to Laura Dern (what more could an average Joe want?), he's got a good job, he's got a very nice home, he's portrayed as a stable, even tempered middle aged dude. Suddenly Helena BC appears, asks for a script to be filled and Steve allows her to scam 10 times the amount of drugs from a local pharmacy! Two or so scenes later, when Helena BC steals the entire drug supply from Steve's dental surgery, Steve coyly makes up a paper thin story to the authorities that wouldn't stand up to detailed scrutiny by investigators!! This is when Novocaine jumped off the rails of plausibility and `Plot' gave way to `Series of Events'. To anyone out there who thought these scenes seem logical, do you realise how big a crime Steve's committing?? How much senseless risk?? How much all the drugs which Helena stole cost?? If Steve wanted to have some sex on the side, it would have been much, much cheaper and much less stress to go visit a high class lady of the night every night for several weeks. And as for the climactic scene in the film from which the title is derived, I was physically disgusted and really couldn't believe that an tempered, stable middle aged dude would be capable of taking out all of their own teeth, as well as those of a corpse. Come on!! It felt like the writers thought of that one scene first and tried to create a movie around it. Overall, not too badly directed, but very immaturely written. Looks like a student film. Steve, Laura, Hel and Kev all should have known better. 2/10

Whatever Steve Martin is in is probably going to be good, and this one was. It was a slow starter but it finally got off to a fast moving film. Steve, the dentist, was taken in by a drug user and when he gave her a prescription for 5 pills, he learned that she had added a "O" to his figure and made it 50. Once he started lying, he had to keep on lying to cover up the other lies. He was apparently an innocent victim and didn't know it for a long time. There was one murder of the addicts brother, and another murder of Steve's brother. He finally figured out the one person who could get all the information together and and set him up to be convicted. When he pulled his own teeth and replaced them in another false set, we could really see the sense of it all. The end was the greatest surprise of all.

I must say that about halfway through this movie I thought about bailing out on it. Steve Martin's character kept making SUCH bad decisions that it was painful to watch and you could easily see where it was going. But I'm glad I stuck with it. Martin did a marvelous job of playing a terribly upstanding character who does things even he thinks himself incapable of, when he meets someone who finds his buttons and keeps on pushing them. *** SPOILER FOLLOWS *** You'd expect him to end up wishing he'd never met her, yet ultimately their meeting is the one thing that saves him. Sure some of the plot twists are a little implausible, but it's well-acted, told from an unusual point of view and a lot of fun. 7 out of 10.

*some minor spoilers* Novocaine has some original touches to it, but doesn't come through all the way by the end of the film. Steve Martin is good in the role though he isn't given many chances to really craft the role so much as emulate a thousand other "regular guy in trouble" types in the same situation. The voice over falls flat and only occasionally makes an appearance in the movie, making me think it was either an afterthought or greatly cut from its original length. There are some trying moments in this film, cliches you've seen a million other times (ventilation duct escapes), but if you stick around there's something frightfully funny or original soon after (who wouldn't want to shove their dentist into their trunk?). Helena Bonham Carter acts circles around everyone else with what she's given and I think that fact alone keeps the film from being completely typical. Editing and cinematography should also given credit for lifting this film from average to above average.

if it's possible to spoil something that's already in tatters. This is a "plot script," meant to show off the cleverness of its writer, in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. For this to work, the writer must actually be clever, and the plot must make sense. This one, alas, is riddled with holes. It also shares another fatal flaw with earlier second-raters like The Getaway (Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger) and The Silent Partner (Elliott Gould, Susannah York): even the characters we're expected to sympathize with have the moral sense of garden slugs, and no real virtues beyond the fact that they're good-looking. Steve Martin, a dentist, has a gorgeous, charming, loving fiancée and assistant in Laura Dern, yet somehow he instantly and implausibly falls for rude, bratty, drug-addicted Helena Bonham Carter. When he discovers that she's conned him into prescribing her some drugs, he lies to cover it up. When he discovers that she's robbed his office of his entire supply of drugs and the DEA wants to know where they went, he lies to cover it up. When her psychopathic brother trashes his office, he lies to cover it up. This is the Idiot Plot Syndrome--at each move, the entire audience is cringing at the stupid mistake made by the protagonist, but each of these mistakes is essential to keep the story going, since doing the self-evidently right thing would clear up the mess and send the audience home. Martin's childish lies eventually allow someone to frame him for murder. The cops allow an actor (Kevin Bacon), researching a role as a cop, to do the questioning. In a deus ex broken armrest, he escapes effortlessly, and immediately returns to his druggie sweetheart, even though the police are watching her. In the end, the loving fiancée turns out to be the villainess, having hatched the whole plot in order to take ownership of his business. (A dentist office? Some motive.) She had talked his accountant into rearranging his corporate structure to make her plot possible, yet when his accountant, on the chair for some tooth drilling, began to spill the beans, it was he, not she, who insisted that the accountant shut up and submit to the nitrous oxide. Her original idea had merely been to frame him for drug dealing, yet somehow she had had the amazing foresight to make a denture copy of his teeth, for the purpose of putting incriminating bite marks all over a dead body that only at the last moment intruded unexpectedly into her plan. In the end, she commits a second unnecessary murder, and is filmed in the act by an office video camera she knew all about. Martin, however, manages to fake his own death and abscond to France with his loser girlfriend (now miraculously cured of her addiction, and full of his child), even though it is now completely unnecessary that he run away. I'll stop here, not because I can't think of any more flaws, but because it's pointless to do so. Maybe there's a decent Sherlock Holmes on the tube.

If this movie had been labeled "A disturbing modern film noir," I would not have been expecting to be amused or entertained, and it would not have ruined my evening the way it did. True, I admired the direction and production values even as I loathed everything else and almost everyone in it. After about ten minutes I said, "I hope I stop hating this pretty soon," and after another twenty minutes I just quit trying to watch it. If I'd had any reason to suspect that I would be seeing a creepy violent Blood Simple or Red Rock West type of drama instead of a "comedy" of any kind it would have been a different matter entirely. I knew a Steve Martin movie was a crapshoot but this possibly interesting and obviously well made crime drama was appallingly mislabled. BEWARE!!!

If you are expecting a typical Steve Martin comedy, then don't see this movie. However, if you are looking for a dark comedy with many twists and turns, and with great acting, then this movie is for you. I liken it to The Spanish Prisoner, another fantastic Steve Martin movie that contained many unexpected plot twists. I give this a 10.

OK, so I have to give this movie points for originality. How many films involve a dentist protagonist? I watched the featurette on the DVD and director David Atkins explained that he wanted to throw a curve ball at the audience by having Steve Martin play the main character in a dark comedy--since audiences are probably expecting something much broader. I didn't get any laughs out of this film; just some mild chuckles. But whether it's a dark comedy or a mystery-thriller, it doesn't quite gel. And ultimately, the film left a bad taste in my mouth--no pun intended. It's watchable, and at times quite intriguing, but it's definitely not a memorable film that I would watch on repeat viewings. The cast is spirited. Steve Martin never ceases to please, whether he's playing a broad comic role or the straight man. Here, he plays more of the latter. But I wasn't surprised he was able to pull it off. If anybody has seen Lawrence Kasdan's "Grand Canyon," you know Steve is a versatile actor who can easily pull off a serious role. This isn't his first time playing the straight man. Laura Dern is amusing as Steve's neurotic, obsessive-compulsive, karate-kicking wife. Helena Bonham Carter is sassy and sexy, a totally convincing femme fetale. Elias Koteas has some nice moments as Steve's black-sheep brother. And last but not least, Kevin Bacon has an amusing unbilled cameo as an actor researching murder cases for his upcoming movie. Danny Elfman's opening theme is wonderfully haunting. There are certain elements of "Novocaine" that I liked, it does have its moments (the twist ending totally caught me by surprise!!), but it just doesn't come together. My score: 6 (out of 10)