SUBMITTED BY katystarlet

September 20, 2001 — One of the biggest disappointments of the festival was David Atkins’ clumsy directorial debut, Novocaine. Although Steve Martin gives a passable performance, the material serves none of his strengths. The other characters behave in completely unbelievable ways, in support of plot twists and other narrative gimmickry. None of the situations or characters obtains the weight that they demand. Instead, Atkins goes for throwaway laughs and, as a result, the film feels inconsequential. Atkins doesn’t realize this and stages the concluding sequences, as if Martin’s extreme actions were somehow intensely dramatic. Kevin Bacon shows up in one of the film’s few inspired scenes, as a Hollywood actor researching a role as a police officer. When Martin’s character is implicated in a murder investigation, Bacon is assigned to the questioning. Like the rest of the jokes in the film, this goes nowhere. Why doesn’t Bacon return in the later stages of the police investigation? Were there scheduling conflicts? Atkins’ script is made up of moments. He repeatedly goes for cheap laughs, rather than attempt the more difficult comedic cohesiveness that a film with such a skewed worldview demands. Formally, the film is poorly executed and even amateurish, at times. Atkins hasn’t yet learned how to transition from one scene to another. Instead, he employs irritating optical and sound effects to distract the audience from these inadequacies. For all involved, this is a write-off.

By: Jonathan Doyle