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

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...

The Innocent review – enjoyably French romcom heist caper

A lonely young widower is drawn into a dangerous plot to pilfer caviar and negotiates pleasingly barmy plot twists

With his fourth feature directing, mop-haired actor-director Louis Garrel puts a French stamp on the Hollywood heist movie. The Innocent is a screwball romcom-caper starring Garrel himself as a guy who gets caught up in a plot to pilfer a job lot of caviar (you don’t get more Gallic than that). It’s a broad, enjoyable, lighthearted movie with a fair few not-insignificant plot holes, but a genuinely surprising storyline that keeps you guessing to the end.

Garrel plays Abel, a young widower, just 32, who’s been emotionally dormant since his wife died. Though he is is close to his mum, Sylvie, a charismatic, warm chaotic actor played with fizzing comic energy by Anouk Grinberg. Sylvie has a thing for bad guys; her latest squeeze is suave thief Michel (Roschdy Zem). They met in prison when she was teaching an acting workshop and he was banged up for a five-stretch. Head over heels, they get married and after Michel is released, open a florist together.

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