Normal by Ben Wheatley (2025)
Boxers, wrestlers, martial artists, and other combatants know the importance of not telegraphing your moves, lest you tell your opponent what you’re going to do next and give up the element of surprise. Normal is an action thriller that telegraphs nearly all of its moves, right from the opening prologue, which effectively undermines virtually any twist or surprise that might crop up in its story about a sheriff who discovers a dark secret lurking behind the picture-perfect veneer of his small town. As said sheriff, Bob Odenkirk once again taps into his ability to portray the least likely action hero imaginable, a role he perfected with 2021’s Nobody. Due to Odenkirk’s performance, I really wanted to like Sheriff Ulysses and be sympathetic to his plight as he finds himself more and more at odds with the entire town of Normal, Minnesota. But Normal’s storyline lacks little suspense or surprise, and eventually, the film’s increasingly inventive — and gory — kills begin to wear thin. When all’s said and done, I think I was expecting something a bit more subversive, especially with Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers) at the helm. In other words, if you want to watch a film about an upright lawman trapped in a seemingly idyllic small town that turns out to be anything but, watch Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz.
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