Genre: Action/Comedy/Thriller
Cast: Bob Odenkirk, Billy MacLellan, Ryan Allen, Henry Winkler, Reena Jolly, Brendan Fletcher, Jess McLeod, Takahiro Inoue
Director: Ben Wheatley.
Released: May 15 (UK & Ireland)
Irony stacks upon irony in Essex-born director Ben Wheatley’s bullet-riddled comedy thriller. There is nothing remotely normal about the snowbound Minnesota town which provides the picture with its title, or the outlandish scenario that John Wick creator and screenwriter Derek Kolstad concocts to transform this Fargo-adjacent community into a gore-soaked battleground. The only normal is actor Bob Odenkirk’s post-Better Call Saul reinvention as an unlikely modern-day action hero with impeccable hand-to-hand combat skills.
He plays sheriff-for-hire Ulysses Richardson, who accepts an eight-week posting to Normal – population 1890, town motto “We Like It Here” – following the demise of the previous lawman, Gunderson, in a tragic ice fishing accident.
Deputy Mike Nelson (Billy MacLellan) introduces Ulysses to his temporary home, where locals have miraculously raised £16.8 million for a new town hall under the leadership of Mayor Kibner (Henry Winkler). Fellow deputy Blaine Anderson (Ryan Allen) is standing for election as the new sheriff, and Ulysses happily acts as a safe pair of hands, delivering Normal’s residents into a peaceful new chapter. “I’m like a midwife with a gun,” he observes in voiceover.
Days into the undemanding job, Ulysses responds to an alarm at the local bank and when the sheriff enters the premises, he comes under fire from his deputies. It transpires they have been instructed to kill Ulysses by the Japanese crime syndicate that secretly controls the town.
Bank staff are caught in the crossfire and Ulysses makes a split-second decision to align with the terrified out-of-town robbers, Keith (Brendan Fletcher) and Lori (Reena Jolly). Meanwhile, Yakuza boss Oyabun (Takahiro Inoue) learns about the robbery and flies to Minnesota to protect his cache of gold bars, cash and armaments squirrelled away in the vault.
Normal is an amusingly overblown retread of Odenkirk’s previous films, Nobody and its sequel, both also written by Kolstad. Like those breathlessly orchestrated battle royales, Wheatley’s gung-ho tale of law and disorder bookmarks a linear plot with bruising fight sequences shot on whirling handheld cameras that appropriate props as weapons, including a knitting needle and meat tenderiser.
Fisticuffs in a kitchen setting feel overly familiar given screenwriter Kolstad’s track record but the carnage is slickly executed and it’s a nice touch to name the deceased town sheriff after police officer Marge from Fargo. Obligatory Tarantino-esque needle drops include a bloodbath choreographed to Dr Hook’s crooning ballad“When You’re In Love With A Beautiful Woman, playing on a diner jukebox.
Odenkirk has mastered his gruff and grizzled screen persona and he happily recycles to wage war against decidedly unfriendly locals with support, late in the game, from the dead sheriff’s daughter (Jess McLeod), who fortuitously has a military background. Completely normal.
RATING: 6.5/10
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