“Meet Nathan Caine. He can’t feel pain.” As far as poster taglines go, that is an all-timer: neatly and succinctly boiling down a zany high concept into seven simple words. For yes, Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) has congenital insensitivity to pain, a condition that comes in very handy when he inadvertently finds himself in an action-comedy film. In its outlandish premise tailor-made for wacky genre mishaps, it shares some ingredients with the nutty 2006 Jason Statham flick Crank — even if its execution is not quite as bold. (No falling out of a helicopter and surviving here.)

Novocaine’s Nathan is not dissimilar from Jack Quaid’s most famous role thus far, Hughie in The Boys: a bumbling, nerdy everyman, reluctantly thrust into a tough-guy world. When we meet him, he’s a kind-hearted credit union assistant manager, who mostly spends his spare time playing video games with the gamertag...