If I had a nickel for every unexceptional 2025 Bob Odenkirk movie elevated by its action, I’d have ten cents. Normal banks on its punchy, violent mayhem to compensate for its barely-there plot, but if you’re solely here for the carnage, it delivers as advertised.
Bob Odenkirk stars as an interim sheriff assigned to a small Minnesotan town called Normal. It quickly becomes evident that not all is as it seems with this simple, overly friendly community. I guess you could say it isn’t… normal. Co-written by John Wick co-creator Derek Kolstad, this fits comfortable into his repertoire of high octane action. The plot is serviceable but paper thin - even nonsensical if you dissect it even slightly. It isn’t long before we get our first glimpse of Chekhov’s gun (and grenade launcher, and knife, and dynamite). You know it’s all going to come into play, and it’s just a matter of waiting in anticipation until the chaos begins.
Director Ben Wheatley is a maestro of chaos, and although I wouldn’t call any of the action innovative or praiseworthy, it’s loud, kinetic and viscerally entertaining. From the “thwump” of a grenade launcher lobbing a projectile into a crowd, to a barrage of bullets chipping away at a marble bank pillar, every shot packs a real punch. Most of the action takes place during a snowstorm after dusk. Even though the movie is pretty playful in tone, the atmosphere is eerie enough to provide some chilling tension. It’s easy to get lost in the mayhem, and I wish some of the action sequences had been directed with more visual pizazz, but overall the action provides solid turn your brain off entertainment value.
Normal’s frenetic action works overtime to make up for a hollow script that’s shooting blanks. Bob Odenkirk is an expectedly sturdy protagonist, and sometimes, those two things are all you need to make a solid shoot-em-up flick.
3/5
Review by: Benjamin Garrett