Normal, 2025.
Directed by Ben Wheatley.
Starring Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, Lena Headey, Ryan Allen, Billy MacLellan, Brendan Fletcher, Peter Shinkoda, Jess McLeod, Reena Jolly, Brian Kawakami, Dan De Jaeger, Alex MacMillan, John C. MacDonald, David Lawrence Brown, Derek Barnes, Megan MacArton, Chad Bruce, Carson Nattrass, Harry Nelken, Bradley Sawatzky, Lauren Cochrane, Takahiro Inoue, Yuhito Adachi, Sarah Constible, Pat Harris, and Yosuke Mino.
SYNOPSIS:
Centers on a temporary small-town sheriff who uncovers dark mysteries after a local bank robbery.
Re-teaming for a new project, weathered action star Bob Odenkirk and screenwriter Derek Kolstad apparently have no shortage of ideas to thrust the former into brawls and gunfights of pendulum-swinging tones. What isn’t normal is for the concept to feel so bare-bones, as if they couldn’t be bothered to flesh the little story and numerous characters that are here in the Ben Wheatley-directed Normal into something worthy of the aches and pains the aging lead is going through across antics that feel grounded one minute, and ripped from a Looney Tunes sketch the next.
Set in the titular midwestern Minnesota town, the story by Bob Odenkirk and Derek Kolstad strikes one as a mishmash of Nobody, this time attempting the oddball society and mythological world-building of John Wick, stemming from a supremely silly idea that feels almost discarded as soon as it’s introduced. Considering the quirky inner monologues from the former’s character that occasionally veer into peeling back the layers of a rough stretch on the job that landed him a separation from his wife and a new gig as an interim sheriff of this town (which is intended to be a simple job with conflict so minimal he can look the other way without sticking his nose into the lives of others, and stay focused on mentally healing personally and professionally) are quite dark, it doesn’t mesh well with the cartoonish violence that sees everything from Henry Winkler getting blown up with a grenade launcher, the Yakuza involved and perturbed that they have to visit this podunk monochrome snowy town in person, residents of all ages taking up arms during the chaos that ensues, and, at one point, an unearned Rube Goldberg kill for no other reason to kickstart one final action sequence that, disappointingly, ends the film on a limp “that’s it” note.
Pulling from almost every cliché in the book, it should be no surprise that Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk) was chosen to take over sheriff duties for a couple of months following the death of the previous lawman for a specific reason. He encounters residents from a hospitable bartender played by Lena Headey, the grieving daughter of the dead sheriff (Jess McLeod) who isn’t ruling out foul play, a woman struggling with a candy vending machine (Reena Jolly), and stumbles into disputes within hardware stores and sometimes in the station itself, where he is given some guidance by Deputy Blaine Anderson (Ryan Allen). The town adores its mayor (Henry Winkler), and a new permanent sheriff will be appointed in the coming months. As Ulysses puts it, all he has to do is mostly stay visible and leave the town as he entered it, while taking time to work on himself and gauge whether or not his marriage can be salvaged.
Such a notion becomes impossible during an unexpected bank robbery that brings more than one revelation when Ulysses arrives on the scene. The more intriguing of the two is that this interim sheriff finds himself double-crossed and backed into working alongside the bank robbers (who mean no physical harm toward anyone and simply want cash to better their lives). Meanwhile, this is no ordinary bank, containing a secret so heavy that its manager would rather shoot himself in the face than own up to the Yakuza he is in bed with. It also turns out that most of this entire town is on the side of corruption, as it is marginally benefiting them.
This means that interim sheriff Ulysses isn’t only up against crooked law enforcement but also regular citizens, sometimes older than him, with no shortage of bloodlust. There is some amusement and cleverness in watching a contained brawl between an old lady with a shotgun, with the surrounding environment to her advantage. However, as alluded to up top, nearly every tweak on familiarity the film introduces is either quickly dropped or brushed aside in favor of more standard action in service of otherwise generic plotting. Throughout one long night of chaos, Ulysses gradually regains his moral compass, guiding the few friends he has in this situation onto a better path and out of harm’s way, but it all feels cheap and corny given how shockingly bleak the event that put him in this crisis in the first place is.
As mentioned, the tone is a mess. And while there are unquestionably crowd-pleasing moments of violence with Bob Odenkirk once again putting his body through the wringer, the rest of his performance is as sleepy as the story. There are countless abnormal ideas thrown at the wall in Normal; few of them stick, hurting the momentum, urgency, and excitement of the action beats in the process. They amount to nothing more than a collection of death and destruction in search of an anchor or reason to invest.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
