Novocaine

Rating

Director

David Atkins

Screenplay

Paul Felopulos, David Atkins

Length

1h 35m

Starring

Chelcie Ross, Steve Martin, Laura Dern, Lynne Thigpen, Polly Noonan, Helena Bonham Carter, JoBe Cerny, Elias Koteas, Scott Caan

MPAA Rating

R

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
It’s hard to be a dentist. That’s the simple motto in this Hitchcock-inspired love story.

Steve Martin stars as Dr. Frank Sangster a predictable, unassuming character. He has a successful practice and a loving fiancée (Laura Dern). When a new patient, Susan Ivey (Helena Bonham Carter), waltzes into his dentist’s office, she promptly seduces him. When Sangster discovers that all of his narcotics have been stolen, he suspects the mysterious Ivey immediately and goes after her.

When Ivey’s maniacal brother (Scott Caan) gets involved in the situation and ends up dead on the office floor, Sangster begins a run for his life to find out who killed the man and why someone is trying to frame him.

Martin, who plays a dentist for the second time (his first was the big screen version of Little Shop of Horrors), doesn’t use all of his talent to portray the trust-troubled physician. He has some great scenes, but when Sangster blatantly lies to the Drug Enforcement Agent, even the dumbest person wouldn’t believe him. By his side, as fiancée Jean, Dern does phenomenally well until the last 30 minutes of the movie, where she falls into an atrocious stereotype.

Bonham-Carter delivers a capable – although not outstanding – performance. Caan, however, as the typical anger-ridden overprotective brother, is quite convincing and manages to steal every scene he’s in. Elias Koteas and Lynne Thigpen, who play Frank’s brother Harlan and his receptionist Pat, are also effective performers.

Novocaine’s standard plot conjures faint images of David Mamet, but with none of the passion. Writers Paul Felopulos and David Atkins were clearly inspired by the famous screenwriter and have tried to capture as many of his nuances as possible. Their attempts quickly fail and the audience is left with a thin shell of mediocrity.

Atkins, who also takes the director’s chair, is the most at-fault person in the production. His lurid direction and underwhelming writing create a horribly uninteresting mess. The first half of the film is interesting and attention grabbing, but once you hit the mid-point, the film slows down. The climax is understandable, but not what you’re expecting and the saccharine-coated ending is false and unoriginal.

Many of Novocaine’s themes are lived out through the simple video Dr. Sangster uses to help his patients succumb to the anaesthetic. It’s a short snippet from a film about rural French life where the complexities of modern life are unknown. This potentially simple theme is abused by a hackneyed script with few redeeming qualities. If it weren’t for the acting, this film would be a complete mess.

Audiences searching for a thought provoking, complex film will need to search elsewhere. If all they want to see is a popcorn thriller on a shoestring budget, they’ve found the right film.

Review Written

June 27, 2002