Normal Review

My favorite moments in the black comedy action thriller "Normal" are the, admittedly rare, quiet ones, where quirky characters do or say odd things that simultaneously feel expected and unexpected. There's a little yarn shop run by a little old lady (who keeps tabs on the sheriff with her combination police scanner/CB radio), but a highlight for me is early on, when a dorky deputy, played by Billy MacLellan, walks into his provisional boss' office and whispers something to the tune of "I don't know if I should be telling you this, but we have, like, the same mustache."

Bob Odenkirk stars as Ulysses, the interim sheriff of the snowy little town of Normal, Minnesota, on week one of eight until the full-time sheriff is elected. What happened to the previous one? Found dead, frozen outside in the middle of the night, fishing rod in his hand. Smells, ahem, fishy.

Trying to get over the demons of a shooting at his last job, Ulysses takes this temp job with the hope of leaving the town the same as he found it, as he puts it, staying at the only motel in town. He orders Chinese food from the only Chinese restaurant in town, and drinks at what's probably the only bar in town too. In case you haven't guessed it, it's a really, really small town.

But Ulysses begins to suspect something is afoot in this idyllic place, and he's right. He doesn't do anything about it, of course, that is, until one day there's a robbery at the bank. Two crooks, a couple played by Reena Jolly Lori and Brendan Fletcher, are in way over their heads as guards accidentally shoot each other, a bystander has a heart attack, and so on. Ulysses decides to go in to try and cool things down, to negotiate you might say, but the other two policemen there, well, let's just say they have other plans. The mayor (played delightfully by Henry Winkler) orders them to shoot their stopgap sheriff and the robbers, fearing they might find out about the vault. Good thing for Ulysses that the other cops are such bad shots.

What's in the vault? Tons of money, gold bars, military-grade weapons, the works. The contents belong to the Yakuza, who we find have paid off everyone in town, from store owners to politicians. Their money has helped keep this 1950's town thriving in the year 2026, despite the continuous beat of time. Ulysses teams up with the two burglars, blowing up everyone who stands in their way, like a crooked parody of John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13." Like that film, the mayhem is pleasantly free of any obvious CGI. In fact, the only thing that I noticed was a moose, which the mayor is obsessed with.

At just ninety minutes in length, the film feels longer than it actually is, neither ending where you expect nor with satisfying results. The relatively listless direction from Ben Wheatley is at the mercy of Derek Kolstad's sometimes funny script, but the end-result isn't able to sustain this blend of violence and humor the way the superior Liam Neeson vehicle "Cold Pursuit" could. The jokes here feel achieved almost as if by accident, and the infrequent action is bloody enough to be distracting but not vulgar enough to work as satire against the peaceful municipality.

The story paints itself into a corner about two-thirds of the way through, forcing characters to act in a way that only serves to wrap things up. The ending, which I won't spoil, only makes sense if no one, that's both you and the characters, never stop to think about it. And that's a shame: these characters are all interesting enough that I began to grow kinda fond of them, only for the whole production to cheat the relationship I build with these wacky people by having them form alliances they didn't earn. And of course, keeping things open just enough for a possible sequel.