In my opinion, Novocaine had a brilliant trailer, but the film was a big disappointment. The first time I saw the trailer on a video rental, I knew I had to see Novocaine. I was expecting a Cohen Brothers style film of sharp wit and beautiful surreality. What I got was 'try hard' wit and ridiculous implausibility.
Now this really p****s me off because I love Steve Martin, I love Laura Dern, I love Helena Bonham Carter and I love Kevin Bacon. I really expected more from a cast of very talented, very experienced actors. This basically means that the fault didn't lie with the cast. It lay with the severe implausibility of the story .
SPOILERS IMMINENT!! REPEAT, SPOILERS IMMINENT!!
At the film's beginning, Steve Martin's engaged to Laura Dern (what more could an average Joe want?), he's got a good job, he's got a very nice home, he's portrayed as a stable, even tempered middle aged dude. Suddenly Helena BC appears, asks for a script to be filled and Steve allows her to scam 10 times the amount of drugs from a local pharmacy! Two or so scenes later, when Helena BC steals the entire drug supply from Steve's dental surgery, Steve coyly makes up a paper thin story to the authorities that wouldn't stand up to detailed scrutiny by investigators!!
This is when Novocaine jumped off the rails of plausibility and `Plot' gave way to `Series of Events'. To anyone out there who thought these scenes seem logical, do you realise how big a crime Steve's committing?? How much senseless risk?? How much all the drugs which Helena stole cost?? If Steve wanted to have some sex on the side, it would have been much, much cheaper and much less stress to go visit a high class lady of the night every night for several weeks. And as for the climactic scene in the film from which the title is derived, I was physically disgusted and really couldn't believe that an tempered, stable middle aged dude would be capable of taking out all of their own teeth, as well as those of a corpse. Come on!! It felt like the writers thought of that one scene first and tried to create a movie around it.
Overall, not too badly directed, but very immaturely written. Looks like a student film. Steve, Laura, Hel and Kev all should have known better. 2/10
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