Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Novocaine (2001)
Director: David Atkins
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Hmm, dentistry noir. Martin plays Frank Sangster, an easy-going LA tooth doctor with a cornball hygienist-girlfriend (Dern), an occasionally irritating deadwood brother (Elias Koteas), and, it proves, a regulation-issue manipulable libido, exposed by grungy mystery patient Bonham Carter. Enter her mad bad brother Scott Caan, and soon Frank's on the run from hard evidence of murder most gruesome. A tongue-in-cheek comedy thriller riffing on the usual nefarious high jinks, Atkins' debut starts with some neat ideas ('lying is a lot like tooth decay'), but they don't play out; the characters are too shallow, the storytelling too standardised and self-amused, and the visual sensibility that bit too slap-happy for it to take.Author: NB
Cast & crew
Director: David Atkins
Producer: Paul Mones, Daniel M Rosenberg
Cast: Steve Martin, Helena Bonham Carter, Laura Dern, Elias Koteas, Scott Caan, Keith David, Lynne Thigpen, Kevin Bacon full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 95 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now