The man who coined the phrase Life is pain never met Nathan Caine.Nateis afflicted with an extremely rare genetic disorder called congenital insensitivity to pain analgesia that makes him incapable of feeling any sort of pain. (Yes, its real.) To a moviegoing public drowning incomic-book movies, that might sound like a superpower. To Nate, its more curse than gift.Its importantfor a person to feel pain. Pain keeps us alive. It tells us to move our hand away from a fire before we permanently damage our hand, or to go see a doctor so that an illness or an infection can be treated. Nate never gets those warnings, so to protect himself he lives a lifecovered in almost literal bubble wrap.He never eats solid foods out of fear of accidentally biting through his tongue. He tops his pencils with puddy; he has tennis balls on every door handle and desk corner,lest he puncture himself without noticing. When hes not working as an assistant bank manager in San Diego, hes avoiding danger at home, mostly playing MMORPGs with his only friend a voice in his headphones that hes never even met (the voice of Jacob Batalon).NovocaineParamountloading...READ MORE: The Funniest Episodes of Drama TV ShowsOf course, there wouldnt be much of a movie if Nate (Jack Quaid) just stayed in his house for 100 minutes. Sure enough, just a few minutes into the action comedyNovocaine, he finally says yes after a lifetime of no to a beautiful and charming new teller at his bank named Sherry (Amber Midthunder). They go out for lunch and (gasp!) he actually takes a bite of solid food. Pretty soon, Nates doing all kinds of stuff thats out of character. He meets Sherry at a bar, he takes her home,and then, when Sherry is kidnappedduring a bank robbery he sets off torescue her.Why doesntNatelet the police handle it? Im afraid youre just going to have to not askthat questionif you want to enjoy Novocaine. To appreciatethe films pluses, namely some very clever action set pieces built around Nates condition, you will also need toendure a bunch of minuses, primarily a plot full of completely implausible twists.Isuppose if you can accept that Jack Quaid cannot feel it when hes shot with an arrow, you can acceptthat a bank robber might booby trap his entire houseHome Alonestyle for basically no reason other than it makes a great placeto torture Nate.Buy the ticket, take the ride, and all of that.NovocaineParamountloading...The script, by Lars Jacobson, oscillates between eye-rollingly silly moments like that one, others that areingenious like a scene where one of the bank robbers catches Nateand tortures him for kicks, and Nate has to pretend hes in agony in order to keep his attacker from realizing that this is all part of Nates (admittedly not very good) survival plan. While I cant say it always feels like Jacobson and directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen have fully thought through the mechanics of their story,itdoesfeel like they have brainstormed every possible way they could wring comedyandbody horror out of this scenario.It also helps that they have a very game Jack Quaid as their unlikely protagonist. With his lanky physicality, he looks the part of a dude who has never left his house, and he really sells Nates head-over-heels attraction to Sherry. He also hassolid chemistry with Midthunder, although the films structure means they spend a large chunk of the movie apart.NovocaineParamountloading...I cannot justify nor explain most of the decisions Novocainescharacters make. Ultimately, I was willing to simply let them wash over me like a heavily medicated dental patient, because I got enough of a kick out the film's dark sense of humor and its surprisingly graphic violence.Novocainebelongs to the same cinemasochistic tradition as movies likeEvil Dead IIandCrank, where the audience is invited to derive twisted pleasure from watching a heroic leading man get the crap beaten out of him ininventive ways.Its not as good as those movies. But on its own terms, its painless enough. Pleasurable even.Additional Thoughts:-I mentioned the house that is inexplicably booby-trapped like its Macaulay Culkins summer cottage. One of the traps involves a mace. Like a medieval mace! Where do you even get a mace in 2025?!?-By the way, the man who said Life is pain was the Dread Pirate Roberts inThe Princess Bride.(The full line is Life is pain, your highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something.) Technically, we should credit screenwriter William Goldman for that one.RATING: 6/10Get our free mobile appThe Worst Action Movies Ever MadeWe love action movies at ScreenCrush. But not all action movies are great, or good, or even watchable. These are the worst of the worst.