A battering shot of comic violence

   First off, it's worth mentioning that I saw a preview of the new action comedy Novocaine in a theater equipped with 4DX. I'd never been exposed to this method of viewing before and to make things clear from the start, I was less than thrilled. 

   4DX aims to provide "extreme sensory cinema." You may feel air blowing against your face when cars speed across the screen or you may feel as if you’re being slammed against a wall during a fight. So called motion seats can shake, rattle, and roll you in synch with the action.

   If you want to know more about this technology, you can  visit a theater that uses it.  My view is simple: What's on the screen should offer sufficient sensory stimulation. How much extra boost do we need?

    I'm not sure what my reaction to Novocaine would have been had I seen it a theater that didn’t help turn the movie into a kind of amusement park ride. In fairness, I should say that Novocaine doesn't seem to aspire to much more than becoming another cinematic thrill ride. It begins softly, then comes on like a battering ram.

    The movie involves a gimmick suggested by its title. Nate (Jack Quaid), an assistant bank manager, suffers from Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis (CIPA). He doesn't feel pain. A loner, Nate was bullied as a boy. His classmates made fun of his malady by dubbing him "Novocaine."

    The premise is simple. Nate decides to pursue a trio of brutal thugs (Evan Hengst, Conrad Kemp, and Ray Nicholson) who kidnap the only woman who ever gave Nate a second look, a bank teller named Sherry (Amber Midthunder). Scenes in which she coaxes him out of his shell are sweet.

    As an old ad once aid about a line of watches, Mate takes a licking but keeps on ticking. Because he feels no pain, he's able to stick his hand into a bubbling deep frier to retrieve a gun that's been tossed into it. He feels nothing when an arrow goes through his leg in house that's been booby trapped. Torture him and he has to fake his screams.

    Two cops (Betty Gabriel and Matt Walsh) also pursue the robbers; they view Nate as a suspect. They don't know he's just a lonely guy who fell for Sherry after she convinced him that it's OK to experience pleasure.

   That's pretty much it for casting, except for Jacob Batalon, who makes a late-picture entrance. Batalon plays a video game enthusiast and online pal of Nate who reluctantly comes to Nate's rescue.

    Quaid, the son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, does a good job playing a guy who's entirely out-of-place in the violent, kick-ass world Nate encounters. Nicholson, son of Jack Nicholson and Rebecca Broussard, leads the pack of villains with sadistic verve.

   Fair to say, too, that directors Dan Berk and Robert Olsen demonstrate a feel for comic violence. But as the movie unfolds, the set pieces can seem more repetitious than innovative. Moreover, laughs can curdle as the violent "jokes" become increasingly graphic.

    Oh well, I'll sum it up this way: I'm not a fan of amusement park rides -- off screen or on.

Those 'nice' folks are plenty scary

Jordan Peele makes his directorial debut with Get Out, a horror movie with a sharp and entertaining satirical edge about racism..

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams) have reached the point in their relationship when it's time for him to meet her parents. Meeting prospective in-laws can be nerve-wracking under any circumstances, but Chris and Rose bring an added dimension to the situation: They're an interracial couple.

Before you start thinking I'm about to tell you about a retooled version of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, you should be aware that the new movie, Get Out, was directed by Jordan Peele, half of the highly inventive comedy team of Key & Peele.

But don't be mislead by Peele's work on Comedy Central, either. Get Out isn't a comedy, at least not in any conventional sense. It's a horror movie enlivened by a wicked satirical bent and it has something to say about the pressures imposed on black people, often by condescending whites.

When Chris and Rose meet the parents (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford), they're greeted by instant acceptance, even though Rose hasn't bothered to tell them that Chris is black. Earlier, Rose had assured a wary Chris that everything would be OK because her dad would have "voted for Barack Obama three times if he could have."

From the start, things seem a bit off-kilter, Whitford's character tires way too hard to show his comfort in the situation, even confessing to some embarrassment about the fact that the family employs two Africa-Americans (Betty Gabriel and Marcus Henderson) to help around the house, one working outside and the other taking care of the kitchen.

This strange pair seems to have arrived from another world, one in which everyone is polite but in a slightly off-kilter way. They're wax-works versions of people, and they seem disassociated from anything that looks either spontaneous or real.

So far, I haven't mentioned anything about the movie's horror aspects, but it's probably best that you discover them in a theater. Be aware, though, not much happens in Get Out that Peele can't shake a bit of thematic resonance out of it.

A high point arises when family friends show up for a party, a collection of white folks who manage to convey a variety of deep-rooted prejudices without breaking stride. And, of course, they seem a bit odd as well, almost parodies of white people.

The only black guest at the party (Lakeith Stanfield) is as strange as the others; he's dressed like a refugee from a country club and accompanies an older white woman.

Much of the movie hinges on Kaluuya's ability to convey Chris's reaction to all the alienating weirdness that he encounters. Kaluuya's performance never sacrifices Chris's dignity or humanity. As a photographer, Chris becomes the movie's eyes. We're seeing the white world from his perspective. It's not a pretty sight.

Signs of looming trouble emerge when Rose's bother (Caleb Landry Jones) shows up, and immediately makes it clear that he's gone over some sort of hostile edge.

To further complicate matters, Keener's character is a psychiatrist who knows how to hypnotize people. Scenes in which Chris falls under a hypnotic spell and free falls through space are rendered in an abstract way that Peele manages to pull off.

Lil Rel Howery hovers around the story's edge, providing the most obvious comic relief. He's Chris's best friend, a TSA agent who -- from the outset -- urges Chris to be suspicious about what he's getting himself into. He's a comic figure, but also the voice of common sense -- and perhaps even conscience.

Because Get Out has no interest in concealing its horror-movie pedigree, Peele can't resist a bit of end-of-picture gore, but there's a satisfying revenge aspect to all the carnage.

Get Out marks Peele's directorial debut; he has accomplished something brave, sinister and stark. Amid the jolts and creep-outs, he has made a perceptive movie about the intermingling of racism and ordinary life.

I suppose you have to have some taste for horror fully to enjoy Get Out, but Peele has served up the season's sharpest hunk of weird fun; by the end, Get Out has turned into a bloody (I mean that literally) good time.