PREMISE
A temporary small-town sheriff uncovers VERY dark mysteries about a small Minnesota town after a local bank robbery.
THE GOOD STUFF
BOB- It’s difficult to review this movie in any way without having direct comparisons to the nobody films that started this whole Bob Odenkirk action-hero thing. Odenkirk has somehow pulled off playing a badass character who both knows what he’s doing (like in the nobody films) and is truly scared of dangerous situations, flying by the seat of his pants. I can say, rather comfortably, after seeing this film, that Bob Odenkirk might be the very best of the “geriatric” action stars we’ve had. He’s not the best actor who’s been a geriatric action star (although he’s pretty close); he doesn’t look the part, no matter how good a shape he gets himself in, and he’s not at all the best fight-sequence action star like a Jason Statham or Jackie Chan would be. He is a perfectly versatile, relatable Everyman to highly ludicrous action scenes and scenarios.
THE 2ND ACT – The first act of this movie functions as a relatively effective mystery. A twin peaks kind of roll out to see exactly what’s wrong with this small Minnesota town. Once we get that out of the way, the second act of this movie gets really violent and looks really good. What makes the action of this film satisfying is that there are no real experts in the town of Normal, Minnesota. All of these people are just normal, untrained citizens protecting their town for all the wrong reasons. Think of the third act of the John Wick spin-off ballerina to see what I’m kind of talking about when it comes to how the action fits in the second act. All this is done really well, and it all looks really atmospheric and cool.
THE BAD STUFF
LENA HEADEY- Once upon a time, Lena Headey would just pop up in films like this, play a small role like this, steal a scene or two as she does here, and then just disappear. That was okay before game of thrones. Because that show has happened, roles like this seem to be a gigantic waste of her time and, most importantly, her talents. There was so much potential in this character to have a bigger role than she does, and her place in the story is really odd. You can cut out her character, and nothing in this story would change at all. That’s really a shame.
THE FINAL SHOOTOUT- I’m going to go as far as to say that this may have been rewritten or re-edited or something, because, as opposed to the events of the second act, the grand finale action sequence of this film felt plenty rushed. Even by an action movie of this caliber, the setup was just sloppy, and the camera work was entirely too kinetic. As opposed to all the action in the second act, which all looked atmospheric and cool, this one feels chopped up and rushed.
THE UGLY STUFF
DIALOGUE- In plenty of reviews on this site, I’ve gone off on how much I hate “on the nose” dialogue. And it’s really disappointing whenever it pops up. For me, it’s worse than having bad CGI, or corny music, or even bad cinematography. “On the nose” dialogue is bad enough to rob you of your suspension of disbelief completely. When it comes to action movies like this, it can be played for laughs, it truly can…. I just can’t remember the last time that happened.
When one-liners are good, it’s because the writing is good. When character interactions are done in a goofy way at an inappropriate time, it does make the audience laugh, because both the actors are good… and the writing is good. When we are getting multiple monologues about characters’ backstories that are spoken in a way that regular human beings wouldn’t speak, like… and when multiple characters do that without being prompted, just to move the story along…That means the dialogue is atrocious. And the dialogue is really atrocious in this film.
**************
I respect that this film really did not want to come off as a Coke Zero version of John Wick. This really took a swing in a lot of areas, and a lot of those swings didn’t connect, but you have to respect this film for trying. It is legitimately funny in moments as well, and that should be mentioned here. This had waves of both good and bad. Overall, it was a decent enough flick.
I have a good feeling that we’re going to see a lot more of Bob Odenkirk’s action era, and that’s a plus for everybody. We do need more films like this. But we just need those films to be better than this.
NORMAL is in theaters now.
