MBunge The most remarkable thing about this poor film is that the enormously talented Steve Martin is, by far, the worst thing about it.Novocaine is a mishmash of film noir and humor. Frank Sangster (Steve Martin) is a successful dentist who is engaged to his hygienist Jean (Laura Dern), a seemingly All-American blonde. The only burr under Frank's saddle is his no account loser of a brother, Harlan (Elias Koteas), who's moved into Frank's house. They have the sort of relationship where the good brother always feels a little guilty that he's better off than the bad brother. Jean and Harlan don't get along but other than that, Frank's life seems quite squared away.That is until Susan (Helena Bonham Carter) shows up in Frank's dentist chair one morning. Susan does have a bad tooth, but what she really wants is to scam some drugs out of Frank. He knows that right away, but goes along with it because he is instantly and irresistibly attracted to her. Susan and Frank have sex, she gets even more drugs out of him, and then Susan's incestuous and violent brother Duane (Scott Caan) gets involved. Frank also has to deal with a federal agent who shows up and wants to see the drugs Susan and Duane have stolen, but Frank doesn't want to turn Susan in. Then someone shows up dead in Frank's house with Frank's teeth marks all over them and Frank has to figure out who's framing him and what he can do about it.Steve Martin is simply bad in this movie and I don't have the slightest idea why. The man can certainly act but he gives a wooden, shallow performance here that undermines the whole film. There is one moment, when someone Frank loves turns up dead, where Martin shows some believable emotion. For the rest of the movie, though, it's like someone is forcing him to play this character and he's just going through the motions to get it over with. The noir hero has to be a bundle of lust and fear and anger and shame and there's none of that in Frank Sangster. And since the audience needs to really care about Frank for anything else in Novocaine to work, none of it really does.Of course, very little of Novocaine would work even if Martin gave the greatest performance in noir history. There's no real rhyme or reason to the mystery of this story, though it is well constructed. As more and more things go wrong and Frank gets deeper and deeper in trouble, everything fits together fairly well. The problem is that there are moments of comedy, black comedy and even slapstick comedy laced throughout the movie and it completely ruins any attempt at creating a tone or mood. It's as though this script started out as either completely serious noir or as an overtly comedic take on the genre but as things went along, someone decided it either needed more funny stuff or more serious stuff and just crammed it in wherever they felt like it. For example, there are two scenes where Kevin Bacon, of all people, shows up as a Hollywood actor tagging along with the police investigating Frank. Those scenes serve absolutely no purpose other than getting the audience to say "Hey look! It's Kevin Bacon!" This weird dissonance extends to the two lead actresses. Laura Dern plays this very broad, deliberately mockable character that could have fit in with Christopher Guest's Best in Show or A Mighty Wind. But Helena Bonham Carter plays her character relatively straight, trying to be genuinely dramatic and all that.It also doesn't help the film that Frank's supposed to be completely screwed up over Susan and Bonham Carter just isn't sexy. She's certainly pretty and she certainly can act but she does not have sensual charisma on screen. I've seen her in other roles where she does a fine job in other respects, but there's always something cold about her and she's positively frigid here. She even goes topless in Novocaine and it still doesn't help.Elias Koteas probably gives the best performance in this movie, but his character is barely more than a plot device that's introduced at the beginning and then forgotten about until needed for the end.Novocaine also has the worst voice-over narration since Blade Runner. You know, that narration that Harrison Ford supposedly read badly on purpose so they wouldn't put in the movie, but they used it anyway? That narration that was eliminated from all those special edition director's cuts of Blade Runner they've churned out? The narration in Novocaine is that bad. Steve Martin could have been reading out of a an instruction manual for all the emotion and energy he conveys.Novocaine is one of those bad films that would've been better if it had been even worse. There's nothing here so egregiously horrible you can enjoy making fun of it. Unless you fancy seeing Steve Martin do probably the worst acting job in his career, that is.

dead47548 A very, very fun little film. It's got a pretty simple noir story but it executes it so flawlessly. It's pretty quick paced, so you never lose interest, but it isn't quick enough to where it loses the audience. I've always enjoyed Steve Martin's comedic talents, but it was great to see him in a much more mellow role. Helena Bonham Carter was absolutely amazing, as always. It's pretty hard to make me fall in love with a drug addict, but she did exactly that. Easily the most, well only, adorable drug addict I've ever seen. Laura Dern is, of course, also great. In what I've come to expect from her, she becomes so immersed into her character that you don't even realize she's acting. Elias Koteas was very good as well. I also really loved the twist. It had a great, mysterious build up to it throughout the film, and was completely unpredictable. One of the rare times that I was genuinely shocked by a twist in a mystery. But, for some odd reason, they felt the need to completely spoon-feed you how everything happened...about 15 minutes after you know everything that happened. My only other complaint were the very gimmicky x-ray shots used throughout. They felt extremely unnecessary and really drew me out of the film. Other than those two things though, I really loved it. Just remarkably fun and easy to watch.

mrliteral You could see it and enjoy it for no other reason than to watch Kevin Bacon as an actor preparing for a role. The man knows how to play parody. Even in a small (and uncredited) appearance he does amazing things.The rest of the movie is not bad, but predictable and unexciting. Steve Martin does a good job taking on a different kind of comedic role, less broad, and with a darker edge, but the movie doesn't support him. It takes itself too seriously to really laugh at, and it's too silly to take it seriously.Without giving anything away, the initial plot devices that get the story moving do not seem motivated by the characters. In particular, Steve Martin's character's actions early on are not behaviors I can really believe, but once it's done, the plot is underway, and you have no choice but to accept it or immediately take the movie out of the machine and return it to the video store.Scott Caan fans will also appreciate his presence. He was good.Bacon rules!

jmgrass I seem to be part of the minority that liked this movie. Well, actually I just liked Elias Koteas and Kevin Bacon. The rest of the film did sort of frustrate me because it seemed like Steve Martin's problems were just so preventable, and he kept doing things to make the situation worse. But that aside, this film is worth renting just to see Elias Koteas sticking that camera thing down his pants. Hee hee. And Kevin Bacon is just laugh-out-loud funny; he's perfect for this part. I thought it was nice to see Steve Martin doing something not so family-friendly