BEFORE: I worked three days last week, then got the weekend off, but I've got FOUR days of work in a row coming up tomorrow, so I'm trying to rest up for that. My ankle is still not 100% but I'm hoping I can get through the next few days with my cane (I only really need it for going up or down stairs now) and my pain is at a manageable level, I think. I just can't take any more days off, I think I used up all of my sick hours at one job, so if I take any more time then I'll have to use the sick hours at the other job, and I don't want to do that. But if I don't get my full leg strength back then I really have to consider finding a new job that isn't so physical. But that's not really a good solution either, because if I went back to sitting at a desk I think that could be worse for my body than standing up during a shift and selling beer. I just can't seem to win here.
Well, that's tomorrow's dilemma I suppose. Today, Amber Midthunder carries over again from "Prey" and I'm starting the countdown to the Shock Block, which starts in just 11 days. The Food Network is already airing the Halloween Baking Championship and also Halloween Wars, and the Family Channel is pushing their own "31 Days of Halloween" programming. Other channels are doing the same, so even though my chain is set for this year, I should easily pick up some spooky movies for next year.
THE PLOT: When the girl of his dreams is kidnapped, a man incapable of feeling physical pain turns his rare condition into an unexpected advantage in the fight to rescue her.
AFTER: This is a very sneaky way to make an everyday character into one of those "one-man army" characters, in the style of Batman or Jason Statham. Nathan Caine is a character with a genetic condition called CIPA, which stands for congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis, and apparently IS a real condition. I think probably more people have this than the "stiff person syndrome" that Celine Dion pretended... I mean TOTALLY had for real. CIPA is caused by a mutation in a particular gene and are unable to perceive pain or changes in temperature, because they don't have the nerve cells necessary to transmit the related signals. Their bodies will still suffer the effects of an injury or extreme heat or cold, in other words, they will incur damage, but they won't feel it. They also won't sweat, at least not from heat, perhaps they would still sweat from exercise, but since sweat is a cooling function, perhaps not.
Those who suffer from CIPA are at high risk for accidental injury - like most of us have that reflex that will cause us to drop a hot pan that we grabbed, but they would not, they could just hold on to it and burn their hand. Patients with CIPA often also have hyperactivity, irritability, and some cognitive impairment, possibly learning difficulties as well. It's unclear if these are directly related to the condition or are a result of HAVING the condition and being injured so easily.
Of course, the character here is completely normal in every other way, he just happens to have the condition without all those possible side-effects, HOWEVER his back-story includes a set of over-protective parents (I feel you, Nathan) who were afraid to let him eat most foods out of a fear that he could bite through his own tongue and not feel it. So he's sustained himself on a liquid diet over the years, apparently. When he finally decides to go on a lunch date with the co-worker he's been afraid to talk to, and she convinces him to eat some cherry pie, it's quite a revelation to him. What other food-related (or touch-related) pleasures has he been missing out on? The mind boggles, however, Sherry is willing to show him a few new ones.
Sherry is also with Nathan when he encounters a former high-school bully - because when the other kids found out he couldn't feel pain, they just took to beating him up every day, because they could, and he wouldn't feel it or get them in trouble for that. But in the present, in the bar, Sherry pretends to offer to "bury the hatchet" with shots, that turn out to be high-Scoville hot sauce, and of course Nathan can't feel the burn, but his former bully can. Wow, Sherry sure seems like a catch, he told her about his genetic disorder and that was NOT a deal-breaker, in fact it just endeared him to her, must be something about his vulnerability, his innocence, and her realizing that there are like a THOUSAND delicious foods that she can introduce him to, so that's the next few months sorted then. But this meet-cute seems just a bit too good to be true, so you're probably wondering, what could POSSIBLY go wrong here?
Well, three Santa Clauses come into the bank (where they work together) and pull out machine guns, so, umm, THERE IT IS. They beat up some bank customers and kill the bank manager who won't give them the combination to the giant safe. When they start threatening Sherry, though, Nathan caves and gives it up, because he JUST made the connection with her and doesn't want to see her get hurt. After all, she's not lucky enough to also have a genetic condition where she can't feel pain... So Sherry should be safe now, except that the cops show up and the bank robbers need a hostage, and she's the one they pick. After a shoot-out with the police, the robbers speed off in TWO cars (for some reason, maybe so they can split up and double their chances of getting away?).
Nathan tends to a wounded officer, but then takes the keys to the police car so he can pursue the robbers. Well, he knows that a hostage is likely to be killed within the first few hours of being taken, so he feels like that clock is ticking. Also, really, isn't it about time that he put his skill of not being able to feel pain to some use? Like, if you can't use your genetic disorder to save the woman you think you love, then really, what good is it? But he follows the car with one robber and some money, not the one with Sherry in it. This leads to a fight in a restaurant kitchen where Nathan proves that he's not very good at fighting, at least not until his condition comes in handy, he can take a punch, he can take being thrown around, and he can fish a loaded gun out of a deep fryer, literally anything to win the fight.
This kind of then turns into your standard Statham-like film, where the lead character has to work his way up the criminal chain, use his contacts and his expertise to track down the bad guys who are in hiding, also whatever resources he has. His resources here are just one friend who he knows from online gaming, along with that inability to feel pain. But will that be enough? The next stop is a tattoo artist (Nathan also happens to have a lot of tattoos, because that's the kind of thing you'd do if you couldn't feel pain, I guess) to try and indentify the other robbers based on their ink. But Nathan's not really good at this investigating thing, and tips his hand, which leads to another knock-down fight with a very large tattoo artist. Again, Nathan has to go to extremes to win a fight, but at this point he'll do whatever it takes, as ridiculous as it seems.
Also, the police are looking for him, because he was the assistant bank manager who gave the robbers the codes, and then he disappeared with them. So at first they figure him for being the "inside man", someone who got a job at the bank with plans to help it get robbed, then disappear. However when the cops track him down by phone, they learn that he's just a vigilante trying to save his girlfriend, and also that he's just not going to stop until he does. It's a good look, being the crazy hero, it just would work better if he had any fighting ability at all. Taking a punch does not usually constitute winning a fight, that's all.
There are still a few twists here that I don't want to give away, especially since they surprised me, and considering how many action movies I've seen - heists, one-man army fighting, working one's way up the criminal structure - I'd like to think that surprising me at all has gotten pretty hard for films to do. Considering how many injuries Nathan "Novocaine" Caine gets along the way, this starts out a bit like "A Working Man" but then starts to resemble "Crank" more than anything else. Bear in mind that all this fighting is causing injuries, even if Nathan doesn't feel them. So by the end he's kind of like that cartoon gunfighter who gets shot full of holes, and he seems undamaged, at least until he drinks some water and it all leaks out.
And by the end I still wasn't sure how seriously to take this whole film - I mean, is it trying to be the ultimate one-man-army movie, or is it trying to be a parody of one? There really is such a fine line between the two, I think. Is this high-concept or just plain ridiculous? Your call, I think. And I may regret saying this, but I kind of hope that there's a sequel in the works.
Directed by Dan Berk & Robert Olsen (directors of "Villains")
Also starring Jack Quaid (last seen in "Heads of State"), Ray Nicholson (last seen in "Smile 2"), Jacob Batalon (last seen in "Lift"), Betty Gabriel (last seen in "The Purge: Election Year"), Matt Walsh (last seen in "You People"), Conrad Kemp (last seen in "G20"), Evan Hengst (last seen in "The Kissing Booth 3"), Craig Jackson (last seen in "District 9"), Lou Beatty Jr. (last seen in "Ford v Ferrari"), Garth Collins, Tristan de Beer, Jessica Leigh Stanley, Chioma Antoinette Umeala (last seen in "The Woman King"), Margot Wood, Keeno Lee Hector (last seen in "Bloodshot"), Maria Vos, Dominique Maher (also last seen in "G20"), Lance Elliot (ditto), DeVille Vannik, Motsi Tekateka (last seen in "The Kissing Booth 2"), Toni Jean Erasmus (also last seen in "The Kissing Booth 3"), Drew Simon
RATING: 7 out of 10 "Wile E. Coyote"-style booby traps
