Normal – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 28 minutes, Director – Ben Wheatley

A temporary sheriff (Bob Odenkirk) finds it difficult to leave a small, peaceful town as he found it when it seems the population is hiding a deadly secret.

As temporary sheriff Ulysses Richardson (Bob Odenkirk) tell us in his opening monologue that he plans to leave the sleepy town of Normal, Minnesota exactly as he found it you know exactly what kind of film you’re in for. Thus begins Nobody meets Hot Fuzz. Screenwriter Derek Kolstad had conversations about Normal with Odenkirk, who receives a story credit alongside the writer, before production on Nobody and there are similarities between Ulysses and Hutch Mansell. However, Ulysses truly doesn’t have special, military-trained skills and finds it best to keep out of things as much as possible. A parking ticket is less a fine and more a note telling someone to park better.

It’s the kind of law enforcement that fits in in Normal, at least on the surface. It isn’t long until Ulysses discovers a secret the town is hiding, and it seems everyone is helping to cover it up and protect it. The unveiling comes in the form of a bank robbery, from there the action is almost non-stop as Ulysses investigates Normal’s Yakuza links and fights off the people trying to defend it.

The action has the improvised nature of Nobody, although without John Wick-esque skills and swiftness. There’s a well-tracked messiness to the scraps and weapons used as part of them. Gelling with the main character, and the town at hand, yet Odenkirk still sells himself as a, perhaps still unconventional, action star. One who’s consistently entertaining and pushes the action and the humour found within it. In the director’s chair, Ben Wheatley gives a knowing nod to the oblivious, although growingly suspicious, outsider in a small town humour, of course with feelings of Hot Fuzz throughout.

There’s a familiar but still amusing nature to the first half build-up, but once things truly kick off and we’re faced with various stages of fights – with both the police station’s armoury, equipped with C-4 explosives (apparently purchased after a budget allowance following 9/11), and a nearby kitchen coming in handy. It’s pure entertainment and moves quickly through its narrative, clocking in at just 88-minutes including credits – much like Nobody, getting in and out with very little fluff. There’s a self-awareness to the film, both in regards to its humour and how Ulysses is presented as an almost reluctant, but dutiful, hero and as the pure entertainment actioner that it is. Not trying to hide its influences for both screenwriter and director there’s a fun time with plenty of thrills, spills and winces that feel perfectly in place with the style of the film and, thanks to a Yakuza opening, an avoidance of over-escalation as the threats grow and shift.

A fun, self-aware actioner in the vein of Hot Fuzz and Nobody, Normal leans into Odenkirk’s action and comedic abilities with plenty of spark and entertaining fights and weapons leading its short run-time to fly by, even amongst the familiar beats of the first half, which hold their own light enjoyment.