There is a great deal that I cannot tell you about Normal. I can tell you it was directed by Ben Wheatley, the British filmmaker whose movies are filled with gory and sometimes hilarious deaths. They often start out as one thing and turn into something else entirely — maybe you recall his 2011 Kill List, which began as an ordinary crime thriller about two hit men and morphed into a full-on Satanic horror film. Something similar does happen in Normal, though Satan does not get directly involved. This unholy cross between Fargo and Hot Fuzz is the action-comedy vehicle that Bob Odenkirk deserved all along.
He portrays Ulysses Richardson, a lawman who’s taking a gig as a temporary sheriff for the town of Normal, Minn., whose previous sheriff suddenly died. Tormented by the memory of a fatal police shooting that he took part in, Ulysses is looking for a low-stress job, and Normal’s mayor (Henry Winkler) hard-sells him on settling there permanently. However, Ulysses notices that a town of less than 1,900 people is about to build a new city hall costing $16.7 million, and that the police station’s arsenal has enough military-grade weapons to take over Mankato or Minnetonka. Everything comes to a head as the season’s first severe winter storm rolls in, when two out-of-towners (Reena Jolly and Brendan Fletcher) try to rob Normal’s savings and loan. Both they and Ulysses discover the bank and the police making highly unusual responses to the situation.
Odenkirk is also credited as a story writer, and unlike the Nobody films, this one takes time out to characterize Normal’s townsfolk, such as the bartender (Lena Headey) who keeps everyone’s secrets and the former sheriff’s ex-military child (Jess McLeod) who’s a social outcast because they are non-binary. The local arts and crafts dealer (Megan MacArton) calls the police because her supplier sent her the wrong color yarn. Amid this milieu of Midwestern politesse, the Illinois native Odenkirk slots in perfectly, underplaying Ulysses so that his past trauma doesn’t weigh too heavily on the comedy.
Twisted comedy is what you should expect from Wheatley, and that Minnesota niceness is an effective backdrop for the hijinks. Several of the townsfolk end up responsible for their own deaths through incompetence and stupidity, and the killing that kicks off the carnage in earnest is explosively funny. The prologue set in Osaka features a yakuza boss (Takahiro Inoue) punishing some bumbling underlings by forcing them to chop off their little fingers, and one of the thugs tries to fake his amputation. The Tarantinoid climactic shootout in a local bar takes advantage of the close quarters and the fact that the bar owner has decorated his establishment with more than 50 loaded rifles hanging on the walls.
I would call Normal a guilty pleasure, except that I don’t believe in feeling guilt about the movies that bring you pleasure. Let’s just say that it’s the most accessible of Wheatley’s often whacked-out exercises in black comedy, and much of that comes from Odenkirk’s relatability at the center of it.
Normal
Starring Bob Odenkirk and Henry Winkler. Directed by Ben Wheatley. Written by Derek Kolstad. Rated R.
