Minnesota not-so-nice

British director Ben Wheatley has always been adventurous in his penchant for traversing genre boundaries, including hardcore horror (The Kill List), the big-budget monster movie (The Meg 2), the cerebral art film (High-Rise), and his own invention, the acid-trip period piece (A Field in England).

With his Manitoba-shot latest, Normal, Wheatley adds neo-western to the list, citing inspirations such as Bad Day at Black Rock, John Sturges’s 1955 thriller in which a one-armed stranger (Spencer Tracy) arrives in a small town to investigate the suspicious death of a friend.

The stranger in town here is Ulysses (Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk, completing a trifecta of locally lensed action movies along with Nobody and Nobody 2), who has come to the Minnesota burg of Normal to act as an interim sheriff after the suspicious death of the previous officeholder.

Ulysses has both his arms, but he arrives bearing the after-effects of a trauma from his previous job. And at first blush, Normal is a town where he can heal, given that the worst thing he encounters is a shouting match at the hardware store and a lackadaisical parking job by the saucy local barkeep Moira (Lena Headey).

Certainly, the town is an exponent of Minnesota-nice, embodied by the solicitous Mayor Kibner (Henry Winkler): “You could build a whole new life here in Normal because we really celebrate the community.”

But the “nice” proves thin when an alarm sounds at the local bank, and Ulysses tries to de-escalate a situation involving a pair of in-over-their-heads bank robbers, Lori (Reena Jolly) and Keith (Brendan Fletcher).

Scripted by Derek Kolstad, whose sardonic approach to action was notable in John Wick and both Nobody movies, Normal has a decidedly satiric feel, suggesting that the heart has gone out of the American heartland. Unlike the ultra-choreographed violence of John Wick or Nobody, the action here feels more chaotic, befitting Odenkirk’s character, who is in a little over his head himself.

To his great credit, Wheatley hired a lot of local talent for big and small parts, notably local actress Jolly, whose bank robber proves to be more sympathetic than most of the straight townsfolk.

Indeed, the subversive aspect of the film may be augmented by familiarity with the local cast. If you’ve seen the soft-hearted Carson Nattrass choking up while introducing the latest season of Rainbow Stage (where he is artistic director), it’s absolutely startling to see him own the role of the vicious Maynard, the owner of that aforementioned hardware store.

The same goes for juicy roles played by Aaron Merke as the bank manager and his partner Lauren Cochrane as a clerk in the sheriff’s office.

It’s a pity the film’s distributors chose not to play the film in Canadian cinemas. I saw it at the midnight screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, which was the ideal venue; the audience was so enthusiastic, you almost wouldn’t notice that the movie’s action climax is one too many.

In any case, if you’re going the VOD route, invite as many people as possible.

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