1 of 5 | Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk) is the interim sheriff in “Normal,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
LOS ANGELES, April 14 (UPI) — Bob Odenkirk’s action phase has been fun to watch evolve. He’s not yet getting the A-list vehicles of Keanu Reeves or Gerard Butler, but Normal, in theaters Friday, fills a void until the summer movie season begins.
Ulysses (Odenkirk) is the interim sheriff of Normal, Minn., whose previous sheriff recently died. Lori (Reena Jolly) and Keith’s (Brendan Fletcher) bank robbery uncovers the yakuza gold stored in the vault, so the town turns on Ulysses as well to protect their Yakuza partnership.
Odenkirk is filling a niche that has always existed in action movies. In the ’80s and ’90s, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal did the movies that couldn’t afford a Schwarzenegger or Stallone.
Normal is Odenkirk’s Van Damme movie as a capable professional thrust into a high concept situation. If it were a Seagal movie, Ulysses would be a secret black ops agent, so Nobody is his Seagal franchise.
Ulysses’ arrival in Normal establishes the playground he will navigate later. He responds to calls over minor conflicts to establish all of the town locals whose characters will become adversaries later in the film, and their stores or homes with weapons and devices he will use to his advantage.
The Normal townies aren’t exactly formidable adversaries. They never expected to actually have to defend the Yakuza’s gold, so they are just fodder for Ulysses to battle for 90 minutes.
Director Ben Wheatley stages the action clearly. It’s not as inspired as John Wick, from screenwriter Derek Kolstad, but we get less than one John Wick a year and that franchise appears to be a unicorn. None of the offshoots it inspired live up to the flagship.
Ulysses shoots, fights and even hurls dynamite throughout the town to survive the night. There are some fun extreme villain deaths. Connoisseurs who watch everything will find some derivative of the likes of Punisher: War Zone but as only the most devoted have that reference, it will surprise most people.
Accidental deaths by Final Destination-esque chain reactions get old. It’s scary in horror movies because anything can kill you. In an action movie, one hopes the heroes will be proactive and capable.
Also tired is the “surprise” accidental shooting of oneself by incompetent henchmen. It’s become a lazy post-Tarantino/Coen Brothers trope that may even originate with Elmore Leonard, at least in 1998’s Out of Sight movie.
There is a minor but substantial commentary on the neglect of small town America. Normal has to turn to Yakuza support when legitimate industries, banks and politicians forsake them. The script, from a story by Kolstad and Odenkirk, doesn’t dwell on that but nor does it ignore it.
Ulysses’ traumatic backstory, which gives him nightmares, is less poignant. He tells bartender Moira (Lena Headey) the story of incident, which is a great monologue for Odenkirk to perform, but it’s telling rather than showing.
Then, when Ulysses reveals more to that story later in the film, it actually makes it less traumatic and more cliche.
So the minutiae of Normal may not hold up under scrutiny, but the premise of Bob Odenkirk vs. an entire town holds up for the 90 minute duration. We also didn’t get Emmy winners in the leads of B-action movies so that distinguishes Normal too.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.