'Novocaine' still, is an easy, if not entirely painless, watch

Nathan Caine may not be able to feel pain, as the tagline for the new action-comedy "Novocaine" reads, but the same does not apply to audiences. Although he doesn’t scream when his leg is impaled with an arrow or when he sticks his hand in a vat of frying oil, you might. I certainly did. Out loud. In a theatre. With other people. There may have been some phrases uttered entirely involuntarily too, Were other people reacting in the same way, I wonder? I couldn't hear them over my own groans, Hooray for the communal experience, I guess? This is, in some ways, a film for people who thought John Wick wasn't stabby enough.

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It delights in the relentless mutilation of its hero, a regular guy (played by Jack Quaid) with a rare condition that has rendered him immune from feeling any sort of discomfort to bodily harm. Unlike such high concept premises as “Crank,” congenital insensitivity to pain analgesia (or CIPA) is actually real.

But it's not exactly a superpower, Nate explains. He can still die; it just might be because he hasn't emptied his bladder in many hours. Or because he's accidentally bitten his tongue off eating a sandwich. These are real concerns of his. His entire existence is devoted to preventing these kinds of crises, mostly through tried-and-true baby proofing techniques like using tennis balls on sharp corners. Like Kelly Ripa before a show, he only consumes “non-chewing food.” Work is stable and dull as an assistant manager at a bank. And dating is out of the question; He spends most of his free time playing online video games.