by Tim Gordon
Over the past several years, Bob Odenkirk has undergone a fascinating reinvention. Once known primarily for his sardonic wit in Mr. Show and his layered dramatic turn as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Odenkirk has also carved out an unexpected niche as an everyman action star, beginning with Nobody. His latest, Normal, continues that trajectory, though with more uneven results.
In the film, Odenkirk plays Ulysses, a weary drifter who arrives in the quiet Midwestern town of Normal to serve as interim sheriff after the death of the long-standing lawman. On the surface, the town lives up to its name: small, calm, and unassuming. But when a bank robbery shatters that façade, Ulysses discovers that the vault holds more than just money and that Normal itself hides a criminal underworld running through nearly every corner of its civic life.
What begins as a straightforward thriller soon spirals into a web of corruption, betrayal, and odd detours. Lena Headey brings a cool steeliness as Moira, one of the town’s most enigmatic figures, while Henry Winkler adds gravitas as the genial-seeming mayor. Yet the narrative stretches credibility with tangents that feel undercooked. The sudden introduction of the Japanese Yakuza, for instance, feels less like a natural extension of the plot and more like a subplot borrowed from another film, grafted on for spectacle.
Director Ben Wheatley, whose offbeat thrillers like Kill List and Free Fire thrive on controlled chaos, brings his signature intensity to Normal. Shootouts crackle with energy, chase scenes are staged with raw unpredictability, and the tone flirts with pulp excess. But as the twists pile up, the story reveals itself as more pastiche than innovation, a remix of familiar crime-thriller beats that recalls Walking Tall, Out of Sight, or even A History of Violence, without fully measuring up to any of them.
At the center, Odenkirk remains the film’s strongest asset. He has perfected a screen persona built on vulnerability and grit, portraying men who aren’t superheroes but survive through sheer stubbornness and moral clarity. His Ulysses is a man both broken and resolute, trying to reconcile past failures while wading through a town steeped in rot. Odenkirk thrives in roles where determination is tempered by exhaustion, and here again, he elevates otherwise shaky material.
Still, performance alone can’t disguise a script that sometimes confuses escalation for depth. The mystery of Normal and its corrupt foundations intrigues at first, but by the third act, the story begins to collapse under the weight of its contrivances. Even Wheatley’s kinetic direction can’t mask how familiar the journey feels.
Ultimately, Normal delivers bursts of entertainment thanks to Odenkirk’s committed performance and Wheatley’s chaotic energy, but it struggles to rise above its genre trappings. In a cinematic landscape already crowded with sharper small-town crime dramas, this one ironically lives up to its title, Normal, nothing more, nothing less.
Grade: C+
