Bob Odenkirk has slipped comfortably into the category of unlikely action hero. Just an ordinary guy who, when thrown into extraordinary circumstances, rises to the occasion with a deadpan quip and a lethal ability to stay alive. And so it is with NORMAL, his follow-up to NOBODY and NOBODY 2, wherein he essays Ulysses, a world-weary lawman suffering the fallout of a professional lapse of judgment that has cost him everything and left him barely able to go through the motions of life. Yet, despite the breakup of his marriage (lengthy phone messages to his ex-wife serve as narration of his burgeoning nihilism), his essential decency remains, even blossoming into compassion from time to time. That juxtaposition grounds the comedy/horror of this biting satire about moral relatively and economic hard times.
The place is Normal, Minnesota, a town of less than 2000 souls slowly decaying in the rural Midwest. It is here that Ulysses has accepted the post of interim sheriff after the death of the one that was duly elected. Ulysses is grumpy, but not unkind despite barking once or twice at Mike (Billy MacLellan), the perky deputy with the creaky jacket and irritatingly sincere smile who introduces him around. He accepts with equal equanimity donuts and passive aggression from ambitious deputy Blaine (Ryan Allen) and finds relief in the monotony of a job that requires little more than a rubber stamp and the need to keep a straight face when small-town shenanigans require cooler heads to prevent silly arguments from escalating into physical violence.
But there’s something just a little off about Normal. Why did the last sheriff have a mini-mansion stocked with ultra-expensive liquor? Why is that sheriff’s only child, Alex (Jess McLeod) barred from the memorial service for her father who had pictures of her displayed prominently in his office? And why did that sheriff meet his end by going ice-fishing in the middle of a snowstorm? And most of all, why does the film start in Japan with three Yakuza being forced to repent in the traditionally, and bloody, self-sacrificing way? All will be revealed as a quirky town has a dark side revealed and common criminals find redemption, sort of, by being caught in the escalating crossfire.
The script, co-written by Odenkirk, gives us the expected eccentricities of small-town life with must-have meatloaf at the local bar-and-grill, the moose of mythic stature that and local legend, and the mayor (Henry Winkler) who embodies all that is wrong with politics beneath his veneer of Minnesota nice. In their midst, Ulysses stands at a remove, observing, questioning, and shrugging off, or trying to, what it is that so unsettles him about these smiling folk. Odenkirk has written himself a honey of a role, and he plays it as a classic anti-hero without a trace of irony. Moments that reek of tired clichés are played with a sense of nostalgic homage to the noir/western genre that serves the black comedy of the piece and the sense of quiet despair lurking beneath his detached veneer. He is the odd man out who finds something worth fighting for as the story places impossible odds and hopeless allies in his path.
It’s why when life-and-death are suddenly two sides of the same coin, it’s not just the pyrotechnics that enthrall as we discover a million wildly funny ways to die in, or not, in the Midwest, but the indisputable righteousness of Ulysses’ cause. That and a script that is never content with obvious plot points or the sort of sentimentality that in a lesser film would mire the narrative in cheap emotional manipulation.
Kudos to a supporting cast that includes Lena Heady as a bartender who knows how to listen, Reena Jolly and Brendan Fletcher as the collateral damage of an unattainable American Dream, Peter Shinkoda as the weather-hating Yakuza, and Megan MacArton as a shop owner driven over the edge by a misrepresented yarn color.
In NORMAL, the twists are superb, the mystery piquant, and the story ramps up into a giddy free-for-all that grows geometrically in body count and the sheer audacity of how it weaponizes everyday items. The only downside here is wondering how this slickly crafted gem could make you laugh at such carnage and not feel (too) guilty about it.
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