Bob Odenkirk has found his niche as an action hero. Specifically, the everyman action hero who finds himself in precarious situations that he has to fight, shoot, and kill his way out of. The latest of these is Ben Wheatley’s pseudo-Western Normal – another notch in Odenkirk’s belt of action films starting with “N” – and it’s a gleefully gonzo shoot-em-up.
Written by Nobody and John Wick writer Derek Kolstad and produced by Odenkirk himself, Normal plays to the star’s strengths. The action is deftly helmed by Wheatley, with slick shootouts that span most of the film, interspersed with fisticuffs and explosions. Wheatley’s clearly having a ball with the genre work, gleefully violent, and this is where the film is at its best, elevated by Odenkirk’s impressive physicality. As the body count mounts, the deaths become increasingly inventive and elaborate and silly, and it’s a lot of fun watching the carnage and bloodshed unfold.
Ulysses (Odenkirk) is an interim sheriff in the remote town of Normal, Minnesota, filling in after the previous sheriff tragically and unexpectedly turned up dead. As he reveals early on, though, “he’s hoping to leave the town exactly as he found it” and is content with the low-stakes problems that come across his desk from the mild-mannered locals. But when a botched bank heist finds Ulysses in the crossfire, a fight for survival is quickly afoot as he uncovers the dark truth behind this seemingly quaint town.
The story is admittedly convoluted; ties to the Yakuza are shoehorned in, supporting characters are thinly sketched and under-utilised, and the switch-up in the town is a little jarring at first. After a violent prologue in Tokyo, the subsequent thirty minutes or so trudge along as we’re introduced to the key players like Deputy Mike (Billy MacLellan), the mayor (Henry Winkler), barkeep Moira (Lena Headey), and the former sheriff’s estranged kid Alex (Jess McLeod). It’s all pretty generic fare. Wheatley has an eye for action, but the same can’t be said for his dramaturgy skills. Thankfully, at a brisk 90-minutes, audiences don’t have to wait long for the action to get going and the stakes quickly ramp up.
There are flashes of Free Fire and Kill List in here, and it’s a welcome return to form for Wheatley after recent duds like The Meg 2 and Channel 4’s lacklustre zombie series Gen Z. The macabre violence of Normal is in the director’s wheelhouse; the kills played for laughs, and the silliness the direction occassionally leans into in this regard is a lot of fun, and coupled with Odenkirk and the rest of the cast’s commitment to the stunts and physicality really elevate this into something devious and fun.
Normal is in UK cinemas from May 15th, 2026.
Normal
Summary
At its best, Normal plays as a heightened B-movie pastiche that’s loaded with laughs, tension, and eye-watering violence. Normal? This film is anything but.
