Normal

If you can imagine a firearm kill, an explosion, or a knife-fight, chances are that Wheathely has packed into Normal— so bountiful are the action confrontations with various configurations of characters.

Normal is action-centric brain candy, with some pokes at timely social/political topics. It’s not that heavy, however, this film won’t change your life. It will allow you to relax into catharsis and put a smile on your face.

As long as Odenkirk’s grumpy sheriff has his coffee and mustache intact, he is the key to finding the perfect balance. No matter how many blows the film and he take, the joy in seeing him swing freely makes it all good, family fun.

Handling it all with a detached, shrugging sense of doom, Odenkirk proves the right man for the job at hand in both of the film’s two tonally separate halves, and he’s supported by a colorful cast.

Many of its twists aren’t hard to see coming, and the movie sometimes lacks the scale needed for a sprawling battle. But a mustachioed Odenkirk with a shotgun is, by most metrics, more than enough firepower for any movie.

Without spoiling Normal’s central twist, suffice it to say that it leads to a lot of gunplay that allows Wheatley to off one character after another in violent, sometimes explosive fashion. It’s more wearying than shocking, but not fatally so thanks to a brisk pace, a willingness to shift gears with little warning, and, again, Odenkirk’s humane performance.

Wheatley’s hyperbolic set pieces feel perfunctory rather than euphoric or hilariously bombastic.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

While the plot of Normal feels somewhat formulaic, and its narrative development leans towards the absurd with insufficient logical coherence, Bob Odenkirk’s performance fits the tone of this type of film remarkably well. This undoubtedly marks another solid and steady step forward in his journey as a big-screen action star.

Normal turned out to be a fairly average watch despite its promising setup and the presence of Bob Odenkirk. The film takes too long establishing the town, characters, and mystery, and the first half lacks the tension or momentum needed to fully pull you in. A few plot developments and character decisions also feel convenient or outright unbelievable, which weakens the grounded tone the movie initially aims for. Things improve noticeably in the second half once the action kicks in. The shootouts and escalating chaos are handled well enough to keep the film entertaining, and Odenkirk remains reliably watchable **** even then, the story itself feels thin, never quite exploring the deeper conspiracy or emotional stakes in a satisfying way. Overall, Normal is fine as a late-night streaming watch, but cinematically it feels underwhelming - a decent premise that never reaches its full potential.

This got pretty good reviews? Not sure why? The script is weak af, Bob Odenkirk completely phones this one in which is tough to see from such a great actor but you cant blame him for not putting his heart into this half hearted movie. The premise has promise but was not very well executed. Plenty of cool actin scenes but that is about it. Skip this one folks, nothing to see here.

When at its best normal feels like it tried to be an under developed imitation of Edgar wrights hot fuzz. In this it succeed in effort but not execution. Much of what happens, when written on a page probably sounded hilarious. The reality of watching it all play out however, is noticeably less so. Add to this a forgettable direction and ADHD editing style and constant camera movement and soundtrack playing. At its worst it just looks like the average over colour graded TV show. Had this had somebody special behind the lens, it could've been awesome and cinematic in the right hands. A real missed opportunity and yet still surprisingly watchable all things considered. Definitely not worth moving your schedule around for.