By Lindsay Traves | Film | March 18, 2025
Jack Quaid, who has made a career out of being a charming nice-boy who gets drenched in a lot of blood, is taking on this month’s box office with a little action-comedy. He plays a nice-boy introvert who finds himself getting beaten up by the underworld. Novocaine gives us Quaid as Nathan Caine, a mild-mannered bank assistant manager with a condition that prevents him from feeling any sort of pain. His life, along with many of his appendages, is lit ablaze when bank robbers kidnap his colleague and the object of his affection, sending him on a bloody trek through the city to rescue his gal while taking a mean punch.
This average Joe kick-punch splatter fest is a delight, and not only took me back to the action movies of the ’80s and ’90s but also reminded me of some of my favorite kick-punch-gore-fests that often play after the sun has gone down. So, if you liked Novocaine and want a bit more, here’s a collection of other kick punch darlings you might not have seen yet.
The Man Who Feels No Pain (Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota)
Listen, at least part of my motivation to put together this list is the existence of this movie and its massively similar premise to Novocaine. This darling out of India also has a lead who is unable to feel pain. Surya (Abhimanyu Dassani) has a similar condition preventing him from experiencing pain, and while in the extra-safety of his own home consumes martial arts movies, which backwardly teach him that special skill. Like Nathan Caine, Surya and his pal, Supri, have secret special skills, Surya using his condition (or perhaps, ability) to avoid pain and hunt down his larger-than-life foes. It’s sweet, fun, and daring and is as much a movie about a passionate film fan as it is of an every-man taking on the whole world. It’s a bloody action comedy and a perfect companion to seeing Quaid punch through skulls with a broken bone.
The Man Who Feels No Pain is available on Netflix or to rent/ purchase on Apple TV
Why Don’t You Just Die?
A much more claustrophobic version of the bloody beat-up comes in this mostly single-location flick from Russia. In this one, a regular guy is pulled into the underworld by his girlfriend, Olga, who asks him to murder her father. Matvei is convinced to do so when Olga confides in him that her father had abused her as a child, so as a loving beau, he attempts to oblige. Now stuck in a bloody game of fists, feet, bullets, and wits, Matvei and Olga’s father trade blows, neither of them willing to relent.
Much like the others here, this movie is bloody to the point of hilarity but boasts clever twists to give it more weight than being just a teeth-rattling blood bath. There’s not much by way of special skills for Matvei, just an unwavering desire to stay alive.
Why Don’t You Just Die? is available on Arrow or to rent/ buy on Prime Video or Apple TV
Here For Blood
In another look to the good old days of action-comedy comes this riff on Mr. Nanny that mashes up the wrestler-babysitter thing with some Evil Dead. This Canadian installation in kick punch canon stars Shawn Roberts as Tom O’Bannon, a down-on-his-luck wrestler who steps in for his girlfriend’s babysitting gig. But it’s not all as it seems when suddenly some home invaders come down on Tom and his young charge, and the wrestler has to use brute force to protect the kiddo from larger-than-life baddies. I could sell this bloody cage match of a movie in a lot of ways, but let me leave you with “Dee Snider as a demon head.”
Here for Blood is available on Screambox and your favorite ad-supported streamers
Headshot
Is Timo Tjahjanto the king of the kick punch? Maybe. Many of us know him for The Night Comes for Us (another potentially worthy installment to this list) and his upcoming sequel to Nobody. But not to be ignored is this blood party from The Mo Brothers (Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel). Iko Uwais (whom I’d follow straight to hell) leads as a man who wakes from a coma in a small hospital on a remote island. Not unlike Jason Bourne, this man (who takes on the moniker, Ishmael) happens to know martial arts and has other special skills, despite being unaware of how. Ishmael, whose motivation is to protect the doctor who saved him, finds himself in a gang war equipped with the sorts of special skills that turn bones to dust and skin into loose fishnets.
Like Novocaine, this is a bloody battle where a skilled man clobbers baddies to save a new object of desire. Early Iko beating people up, let’s go!
Headshot is available on Netflix
Kill
I’m realizing at the finish line that while I wanted to highlight unsuspecting heroes getting drenched in blood while in battle, I’ve curated a list of dudes saving their damsels in distress (something Novocaine actively tries to subvert). But, while it’s not that simple for a lot of the others on this list, which come with twists, turns, and their own subversions, Kill is pretty much a showcase of beating up guys on the way to your woman. Amrit is a NSG commando who happens to be riding the same train as his girlfriend, Tulika, who has just been promised to another man by her business tycoon father. Foiling his plan to propose to Tulika are train robbers targeting the richer crowd in the front cars. Knowing that’ll make his girlfriend a target, Amrit uses his special set of commando skills to fight his way through the crooks and up to the front. What follows is a back-and-forth bloody beat down that increases through the train cars like an even more demented Snowpiercer. It’s sticky, nasty, and sometimes hard to watch, which makes it a lovely companion piece to Novocaine.
Kill is available on Hulu
