Novocaine review – Jack Quaid is put through the grinder in ultraviolent action comedy

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A man’s inability to feel pain comes in handy in this extravagantly gory bank heist caper Risk-averse San Diego assistant bank manager Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) lives a cautious, cotton wool-wrapped life. It’s not that he’s afraid of getting hurt. Quite the opposite, since a rare genetic abnormality means he’s unable to feel pain. Rather, Nathan is concerned that because of his sensory quirk he risks inadvertently injuring himself. When the girl of his dreams, sparky fellow bank employee Sherry (Amber Midthunder), is abducted during a heist, and Nathan embarks on an off-the-cuff rescue mission, his unusual condition suddenly comes in handy. While Nathan may feel no pain, the audience certainly does: this is an amped-up, cartoonish blitzkrieg of ultraviolence and – fair warning – a bit of an endurance test if deep-fried fingers and snapped bones give you the ick. Directors Robert Olsen and Dan Berk take a sadistic glee in dreaming up extravagant horrors to inflict on their irrepressib...
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Radji review – moving depiction of Sami herders and their reindeer

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This documentary follows Sami families as they fight the Norwegian government for the right to take animals along routes used for generations

The Indigenous Sami people have lived in Scandinavia for thousands of years, making a living from hunting, fishing and herding reindeer. This mild-mannered but often moving documentary charts one community’s fight to continue herding its reindeer along routes that have been used for generations. The film isn’t doing anything very new: it’s a classic David and Goliath story that pits its plucky Sami underdogs against a big, bad foe (in this case the Norwegian government); but it looks ravishing and is never less than completely engaging.

Much of the film is spent with herder Simon Marainen, a lonely figure who has taken over the family flock after his two brothers killed themselves and is now passing his skills down to his children. As summer looms, the Marainens’ reindeer migrate to Norway, then mooch back to Sweden for the winter. Herding them, it turns out, isn’t a Christmassy lark, but tough work for tough people, requiring stoutness in bad weather and serious physical strength. Yet it’s beautiful work, too, done on snowmobiles beneath huge pink skies that will make you yearn to jack in your old routines and find simpler ones.

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