The film’s tagline sums it up in five words: “Nathan Caine can’t feel pain.”That’s not some sort of pun or metaphor about his cold heart; literally you can punch or kick or stab or shoot the guy, and he won’t even flinch.

Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) can’t feel pain, but audiences will while watching Novocaine, a misfire that never strikes the right balance between comedy and carnage. The story of a man with a rare genetic condition that makes him impervious to suffering who finds himself thrust into rescue-mission mode when his beloved is kidnapped,

Stories featuring ordinary people faced with extreme situations have proven to be popular in film history. They range from Hitchcock movies like Rear Window to Brian De Palma’s Blow Out to the Coen Brothers’ Fargo.