Centers on a temporary small-town sheriff who uncovers dark mysteries after a local bank robbery.
Chuck says:
I wouldn’t have expected Bob Odenkirk to take the Liam Neeson route to map out the final act of his eclectic career. Having cut his comedic teeth as a writer at Saturday Night Live and co-creator of the groundbreaking sketch comedy series “Mr. Show,” he proved he had dramatic chops as well in “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.” Shifting gears with 2021’s “Nobody,” the actor was cast as just another guy trying to live a normal life in the ‘burbs, yet finds he can’t outrun his past. That the film was a hit was due in no small part to Odenkirk’s Everyman quality and innate affability.
Yet, unlike Neeson, the actioners Odenkirk’s appeared in maintain a sense of quality and, with his latest, “Normal,” are, in fact getting better. To be sure, three movies are a small sample size, but the distinction between fare like Neeson’s “Black Light” and “Retribution,” and Odenkirk’s features is in their tone. There’s a post-modern sensibility to “Nobody” and “Normal” that makes the mayhem go down easier. Tongue is planted firmly in cheek throughout, Odenkirk and his castmates conveying they don’t believe a bit of what’s happening and you shouldn’t either. These are movies where you’re meant to check your brain at the door and settle back to revel in the ridiculousness of all that’s playing out before you.
That may seem an odd request regarding a movie that features carpenter nails being run into eye sockets and the titular town’s mayor being blown up, but it is what it is. Credit director Ben Wheatley with not only creating the darkly comic tone that allows such scenes to be funny but the film’s crisp pace which keeps things humming from one set piece to the next.
Odenkirk is Ulysses Richardson, interim sheriff for the town of Normal, Minnesota. Seems his predecessor died under mysterious circumstances and he’s there to fill in until the next election in eight weeks. Though he has a laidback demeanor, that doesn’t mean he’s not keenly observant of his surroundings. Richardson can’t help but notice that while most small town American main streets are littered with vacant shops, Normal’s is thriving, with the construction of a new multi-million-dollar courthouse set to anchor it all. Our hero begins to suspect something’s not quite right in this part of the state of Minnesota.
His suspicions are validated when a botched bank robbery reveals the town is a front for the Yakuza who, making more money in the States than they know what to do with, launder and store it in this out-of-the-way burg. Seems all the townsfolk are aware of this, each getting a healthy monthly subsidy, all of them set to protect these ill-gotten gains, knowing the wrath of the Yakuza will descend on them if they don’t.
Before that can happen, Richardson and the two hapless thieves (Brendan Fletcher and Reena Jolly) are forced to defend themselves against the army of Normalites, some adept with the high-powered weaponry at their disposal, some not. This results in some rather clever, albeit grisly, set pieces that simultaneously elicit laughs as well as groans, none of which your allowed to dwell on as Wheatley moves on to the next.
The script by Odenkirk and Derek Kolstad is well-constructed, the final act containing one clever surprise after another. The climax takes place in a bar festooned with hundreds of rifles decorating its walls. The question as to whether they’re loaded or not, asked earlier in the film, is answered in a spectacularly gruesome fashion during a sit-down meal with the locals and visiting Japanese gang members. Needless to say, far fewer walk out than had walked in, the action that ensues being inventive, well-choreographed and not without a laugh or two.
Obviously, “Normal” will not be everyone’s cup of tea. Far from subtle and containing little in the way of nuance, it proves most effective when its hero stoically reacts to its characters when they realize too late, they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. Like when a deputy gets his ear shot off and tries to reattach it. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie.
3 Stars
