★★★ (3 out of 4)
Bob Odenkirk’s mid-career reinvention as a reluctant action hero—see “Nobody” and “Nobody 2”—continues apace in “Normal,” now in theaters where audiences may find it hard to distinguish from a sure-to-be greenlit “Nobody 3.” That’s OK. Those movies were modest hits, and “Normal” seems headed in the same profitable direction. But since the movie is set in Minnesota, where the Coen brothers set “Fargo,” you are hereby advised to set your expectations lower than that landmark level.
Now that we have our bearings, let me state for the record that the star of “Better Call Saul” isn’t acting normal in “Normal,” named after the small town (pop 1,890) where his character, Ulysses, has just been hired as interim sheriff after the last badge holder, Gunderson (Frances McDormand’s name in “Fargo” for those who like Easter egg hunts), went to his final reward.
For all the mirth and mayhem, Bob Odenkirk and his merry pranksters are exposing how violence is wired into the American character.
There’s not much backstory in the script by “John Wick” creator and “Nobody” scribe Derek Kolstad. And British director Ben Wheatley, back from the twin disasters of “The Meg 2” and an ill-conceived remake of Hitchcock’s “Rebecca,” returns to the action-comedy form that made “Free Fire” and “High Rise” such winners.
We do learn that Ulysses had a wife and a bad rep from his last job when he failed to believe a woman’s cry of rape. But his gig in “Normal” is a temporary clean slate. And Normal seems so quiet and, say it, normal.
Never fear. Wheatley and Kolstad are so eager to get to the bloodbaths that they start their movie on the Japanese mean streets of Osaka where Yakuza gangs ask members to cut off their own fingers as a sign of loyalty. Hold that scene in your head since the Yakuza will be back later to fill in the details of the threadbare plot.
And then, zap, we’re in Normal meeting an intriguing cast of characters, including the always welcome Henry Winkler as the avuncular sleaze of a mayor, Lena Headey as town bartender Moira who sees everything, and Jess McLeod—an award-winning trans nonbinary Canadian actor and filmmaker—as Alex, an ex-military trans character who’s the child of the last sheriff and a surprising ally for Ulysses.
Still, action is character in “Normal,” which speeds by in 90 minutes while taking the time to paint a portrait of small-town America where nearly every ordinary store or shop is a façade for hiding the guilty acts of a divisive country whose idea of patriotism starts with fattening their own wallets.
The film starts for real when Ulysses foils a bank robbery engineered by the bumbling Keith (Brendan Fletcher) and Lori (Reena Jolly) and practically the whole town unites to prevent Ulysses from exposing the Japanese conspiracy that’s making everyone rich. “Normal” recalls another film classic on this theme, 1955’s “Bad Day at Black Rock” in which an outsider (Spencer Tracy) exposes a town’s murder of a Japanese farmer after Pearl Harbor.
Still, it’s the action scenes that bring the movie home. Odenkirk, going darker and tougher than he did in “Nobody,” lets us see that Ulysses is a cop who can handle himself. When the townsfolk, who have no training, turn against him, their comic incompetence can also turn lethal. In a climactic kitchen battle, improv artillery from cutlery and plates to watermelons become weapons of mass Minnesota destruction.
For all the mirth and mayhem, Odenkirk and his merry pranksters are exposing how violence is wired into the American character. Without a hint of sermonizing, “Normal” shows how we secretly crave what we publicly condemn, and how we even make peace with it. You won’t know what hit you.