Magnolia Pictures
Dan Bennett- Normal’ Upends The Usual, Knives Drawn, Humor A Weapon
A frozen cup of “Fargo,” an icy spoonful of “Reservoir Dogs,” and with more than a hint of sunless “High Noon,” the tightly wrapped “Normal” is anything but and exactly that. (Normal).
A darkly humorous seesaw of violence and redemption, the film is also a meditation on self-renewal, the inevitability of owning the past, and a cinema lesson in capturing hand-to-hand combat under a cloud-covered moon.
Created by the maker of the “John Wick” franchise and starring and co-produced by Bob Odenkirk, “Normal” entertains us with both wit and fast action. Blink, and you miss the severance of some vital body part, or the bang-bang of a gun in the hands of a character we least expected to open fire.
Odenkirk plays Sheriff Ulysses, currently on loan to the small town of Normal, Minn., after Normal lost its sheriff under mysterious circumstances, and after Ulysses experienced a life-changing tragedy in his most recent job as chief lawman elsewhere.
As Ulysses meets the town players, the setting and the personalities seem so nondescript that we know it’s too usual a place to stay that way. And we already know from an early scene that some kind of wild clash is inevitable.
It’s not long before the story swerves way to the weird side. Townsfolk reveal their true selves, and Ulysses’s redemption path becomes anything but tranquil. Yakuza gangsters arriving on the scene and a botched bank robbery set in motion a wild, hourlong action sequence, as bloody and surprising as it is humorous, in a did-they-really-just-go-there kind of way.
“Normal” doesn’t reinvent this strain of the Americana gone haywire genre, and it certainly acknowledges that it’s derivative of its many revered ancestors. W
ith Odenkirk fitting nicely as the likable main character, though, and a talented ensemble of good actors playing the oddball townsfolk, “Normal” settles in as an homage to “The Twilight Zone” as much as anything. And that’s good company to keep under the frozen, cloud-covered moon.
“Normal” B
Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler
Director: Ben Wheatley
Rated R (for strong bloody violence and language)
Running time: 90 minutes
Now Streaming on HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime
