Novocaine 2025

Nathan Caine is a mild-mannered introvert with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA) working as an assistant manager at a trust credit union in San Diego. His co-worker Sherry Margrave is romantically interested in him, but Nathan is hesitant due to his condition and inexperience with women. At a bar with Sherry, Nathan meets his middle school bully, who calls him “Novocaine.” Sherry gets revenge for Nathan by tricking him into drinking a shot of hot sauce; the two then spend the night together.

The next morning, on Christmas Eve, a gang of robbers dressed up in Santa suits led by Simon Greenly rob the credit union and take Sherry as a hostage. Nathan impulsively steals a cop car in pursuit of the car in which Sherry is being held, but he follows the wrong car and ends up in a confrontation with another robber, Ben Clark, in a restaurant kitchen. He eventually shoots Ben dead, but not before severely burning his hand while retrieving Ben’s gun from a deep fryer.

After noting Ben’s tattoo, Nathan tracks down the artist, Zeno, and interrogates him for Ben’s address, hoping to find Sherry. After a brawl, Nathan manages to get Ben’s last name from Zeno, and he calls his only friend, Roscoe Dixon, a gamer whom he has never met in person, to find Ben’s home address. Ben’s house is booby-trapped, and Nathan ends up stuck in a snare; in desperation, he calls Roscoe. Ben’s brother Andre enters the house and begins to torture Nathan, who feigns feeling pain. Roscoe arrives, and together they overpower and kill Andre. Police officers Mincy Langston and her partner Coltraine Duffy arrive at the house and arrest Roscoe, who has switched clothes with Nathan.

Nathan locates Sherry and Simon at an auto shop and discovers she is Simon’s sister and an accomplice to the heist; she originally intended to seduce Nathan to learn the bank vault code but developed real feelings for him. Simon tries to kill Nathan against Sherry’s protests, but he is shot by an arriving Coltraine, while Sherry and Nathan are arrested. Simon in turn shoots Coltraine dead and escapes in the ambulance holding Nathan. Sherry frees herself from the handcuffs, and she pursues the ambulance while Roscoe takes a wounded Mincy to the hospital.

After regaining consciousness, Nathan breaks free from the handcuffs and defibrillates Simon, causing him to crash. Having had enough of Nathan, Simon breaks his arm just as Sherry arrives. As soon as he is about to kill Sherry, Nathan injects himself with adrenaline and kills Simon by sticking his exposed arm bone through Simon’s jaw before falling unconscious, finally exhausted by his injuries.

When Nathan awakes in a hospital two weeks later, he learns he has been sentenced to six months of house arrest instead of a lengthy prison sentence due to his saving the life of the cop whose car he took to pursue Sherry.

One year later, he visits Sherry, who is near the end of a short sentence for her role in the robbery. They share a cherry pie, the first physical food Nathan ever ate, which Sherry had introduced him to on their first date. As the prison guards lead Sherry back to her cell, Nathan chews and smiles.