After Nobody<\/em> and its sequel, the similarly titled Normal<\/em> could easily be mistaken for the latest in Bob Odenkirk\u2019s one-everyman-army series. And that wouldn\u2019t be entirely wrong. While Normal<\/em> sees the former Saul Goodman playing a world-worn cop rather than a retired family-guy assassin, and has a different setting (an apparently sleepy, snowy town slap-bang in Coen territory), it is very much a companion piece. Once again, Odenkirk has teamed with Nobody<\/em>\/John Wick<\/em> writer Derek Kolstad. And once again he proves surprisingly limber as a gritty action hero, who in one sequence gets handy with a meat tenderiser during a brutal diner-kitchen brawl, and in another metes out explosive justice with a repeating grenade-launcher.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a familiar Western-vibed plot that\u2019s essentially Assault On Precinct 13<\/em> via Hot Fuzz<\/em>, Odenkirk\u2019s interim sheriff Ulysses is assigned to a recession-hit middle-of-nowhere which has recently lost its chief. Expecting the usual \u201cgood people, small problems\u201d, he plans to leave the place exactly as he found it. Although, he\u2019s a little puzzled by the station\u2019s hugely overloaded armoury. And the fact that the little old lady who runs the yarncraft store has a police scanner. And what\u2019s with those nine-fingered Japanese security guards? Still, he doesn\u2019t want to rock any boats, and insists that \u201clife\u2019s a little easier when you care a little less\u201d. Ulysses isn\u2019t a cynic so much as relatably \u2014 and likably \u2014 realistic. But when a pair of out-of-towners unwisely decide to rob the bank during a blizzard, it all kicks off in a bullet-torn shitstorm, where the line between ally and enemy refuses to stay put. The time for being realistic is over.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Wheatley is as adept at bringing out Ulysses\u2019 warmth and weariness as he is revelling in the solidly choreographed, town-trashing savagery…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n To conduct all the grindhouse-style chaos that ensues, Odenkirk and Kolstad have pleasingly enlisted our very own Ben Wheatley. They evidently appreciated the Essex-born director\u2019s ability to blend the comedically mundane with tongue-in-cheek extremity, and it\u2019s easy to relate Normal<\/em> to a few of his previous joints, not least Sightseers<\/em> and Free Fire<\/em>. Wheatley is as adept at bringing out Ulysses\u2019 warmth and weariness as he is revelling in the solidly choreographed, town-trashing savagery, while also letting the story\u2019s MAGA-era critique seep through.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Coming in at a lean 91 minutes, Normal<\/em> doesn\u2019t mess about. While its sprightly pacing is mostly to its credit, it does have a habit of highlighting a detail \u2014 Ulysses\u2019 tragic backstory, the ostracisation of the previous sheriff\u2019s trans kid (Jess McLeod), the presence of Lena Headey in the cast \u2014 and then not really taking it anywhere. Thankfully, this isn\u2019t enough to derail the film\u2019s borderline-silly fist-and-trigger antics, and it\u2019s about as fun and subversive as you\u2019d hope for an Odenkirk\/Wheatley collab.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/div>\n Bob Odenkirk continues his late-career action streak with a satirical and stylishly violent take on the small-town-under-siege movie. Ben Wheatley meets John Wick? Oh, go on then.<\/p>\n Temporary sheriff Ulysses Richardson (Bob Odenkirk) is assigned to Minnesotan small-town Normal \u2014 where things turn out to be anything but. After Nobody and its sequel, the similarly titled Normal could easily be mistaken for the latest in Bob Odenkirk\u2019s one-everyman-army series. And that wouldn\u2019t be entirely wrong. While Normal sees the former Saul Goodman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-47"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9328"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9330,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9328\/revisions\/9330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Normal](\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/normal.jpg\")
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