Normal
                                                                                                        
Director: Ben Wheatley
Year: 2025
Rating: 7.0
Here is more fun from Bob Odenkirk who to everyone's surprise has become an unlikely action movie star with his two Nobody films and now this one. A positive lesson to all of us that you are never too old to become an action hero. He is able to pull it off because he is a fine actor who can make the audience believe him. He is great to watch, not the action bits which lots of actors can do, but for the non action parts. He plays everything slow, reluctant, wry - an everyman who can commit acts of carnage when pushed. He wrote the script with Derek Kolstad and it would be hard to find someone that would be better for an over the top action film. Not only did Kolstad script the two Nobody films, but also the first three John Wick films. Not too shabby.



Normal is a small town in Minnesota that has managed to survive difficult economic times while many towns across America have slowly vanished with modern technology emptying them out. But Normal is doing fine. Friendly folks who will give you a wave and a helping hand. A hunting town where guns are part of life. Good pies too. They take to the new Sheriff who has been hired to temporarily hold the job until the election. Nothing much happens in Normal which is just how Sheriff Ulysses (Odinkirk) likes it. He was hired from another town. A slightly broken man. Just wants to get along. "I want to leave the town just how I found it". Just how the town wants it too.



But a prologue in which the Yakuza send two men to Normal after they cut off their little fingers clues you in that this isn't Mayberry and Ulysses isn't Andy Taylor. This is no quirky sit-com. No, the town's people are not aliens or in a Wicker Man like cult; instead they have sold their souls to the Yakuza. To survive. When a bank robbery goes very wrong, the town's secret is exposed and now Ulysses has to die. And everyone has a gun. Even the little old lady who darns all day. It suddenly explodes into chaotic violence and death. Punctuated by moments of very funny black morbid comedy. Very light going that never emotionally engages you, but is very entertaining. Henry Winkler is the Mayor and Lena Headey a bartender who serves more than drinks.