Novocaine | Review

A useless fact which I once heard is that out of all professions the highest number of suicides comes from dentistry- inflicting pain on patients isn’t the most fun part of this line of work. Screenwriter/director David Atkins serves story about an unscrupulous code of ethics, human deception and the scheme for the (almost) perfect set-up. Novocaine is not a film about dentists or the profession, but rather an example of an extreme hazard that comes along when the guy (with the funny chair that moves) must deal with people whom he would probably never meet in his everyday life. Steve Martin (The Spanish Prisoner) plays the dentist-Dr. Frank Sangster a good man with good principles who serves his patients well (letting them unwind in front of foreign French films with vast fields, pretty flowers and plenty of French accents). The role fits Martin like a latex glove, Martin with his comic background and his more recent plunge into edgier dramatic roles is superb. He comes across as the perfect example of the ordinary Joe who veers off onto the wrong side-the unethical part of the business. Foreshadowing his own fate when he says, “Lying is a lot like tooth decay… one small lie and everything unravels from there.” we notice the that a dark side exists in him like in all humanity, he ends up giving into his temptations (such as the ‘big easy’ in the dentist’s chair) which will torment him into committing the most unthinkable of acts a dentist could do (think of the most dreadful of experiences you could have in a dentist’s chair). I like how the narrative is recounted- Martin’s offers us a voiceover which tells his tale in the looking back on “how-I-was-ruined” mode- resembling the old black and white detective pictures narration of yesterday.

There is a nice complicity with the casting of Laura Dern (Citizen Ruth) who plays Jean the fun loving karate chopping girlfriend and Helena Bonham Carter (Planet of the Apes) the ‘other’ woman who is responsible for his initial demise. The better part of the jokes/humour comes mostly from this trio of characters where as the rest of the cast seem like simple annoyances, with an exaggerated DEA officer, an irritating detective, a testosterone-filled boyfriend Scott Caan (Ocean’s Eleven), the annoying visiting brother Elias Koteas (A Thin Red Line) and a Kevin Bacon (Hollow Man) the over-zealous actor all rub off the wrong way. I got the overall impression that something was lacking-that there could have been something here but there wasn’t, in essence the film falls short, there is an honest effort here on the part of Atkin to give the viewer something out of the ordinary- a comedy-noir mixed with obscurity, but the script asks the mystery to drops clues like a bread line trail rather than a whodunit type- lacking the panache and/or style which is not solely reserved to masters like Hitchcock. Novocaine asks for many plot twists, which are for the most part-very predictable, thus taking away any of the mystery and pleasures in which it is trying to build- and when the unravelling and answers finally unfold there is very little that is satisfying in reaching the film’s conclusion. Perhaps the film doesn’t press the right buttons; the humour is sharp and keen but for the better part it seems dry and self-imposed-it left me the feeling of being unfulfilled.

Rating 2 stars