In this increasingly over-the-top action comedy, Nathan Caine is an assistant bank manager who takes manners into his own hands when the girl of his dreams is kidnapped by armed criminals. To make matters both more and less helpful, Nathan has a rare condition where he can’t feel pain at all.

Novocaine takes full advantage of its smart concept, upping the ante in humor, gore, and excitement throughout its runtime. However, it stars off genuinely charming and emotionally effective in its beginning, making Nathan’s arc, and the audience’s investment, pay off. Jack Quaid gives the film its heart, and though the trope of an unskilled, unqualified everyman suddenly thrusted into a deadly action-packed situation has been done to death, the journey feels completely fleshed out and earned here. Quaid has tons of fun leading into the ridiculous and often accidental badassery of his protagonist. Amber Midthunder also gives the film plenty of heart and proves her versatility, and Jacob Batalon is hilarious. Betty Gabriel is also strong as a cop on Nathan’s tail, and even the villains, in all their cheesiness, gives some fun to be appreciated in their performances.

As Novocaine continues to push the limits of the term “over-the-top”, it occasionally stumbles in its story’s believability, but the suspense of disbelief when it comes to the gory action scenes never detracts, just further entertains and may even have your jaw on the floor. The more audacious it becomes, the more pleasing the journey with Novocaine gets. But balancing out the gore and nonsense is a sense of heart with its romance and friendship at its core, with Quaid’s charisma at its center that we can never quite get enough of.