Odenkirk’s skills are higher than ‘Normal’

    Crossbreeding Tennyson with the Coen Brothers is a bold move on the part of “John Wick” scribe Derek Kolstad. And in the ironically titled “Normal,” it almost works thanks to Bob Odenkirk, the somebody who was Kolstad’s “Nobody.” And he’s really something, more Jimmy McGill than Saul Goodman in his engaging portrayal of nomadic sheriff for hire Ulysses, who, like his namesake, is on a never-ending journey to outrun his bloody past.

    Like Tennyson’s Ulysses, he has a wife named Penelope, from whom he pines despite her wanting nothing to do with him since “the incident.” I will not disclose what that momentary lapse in judgment was, but Ulysses has allowed it to define him as both a man and a peace officer. As such, he’s forever roaming from town to town, hiring on as an interim sheriff after the predecessor either died or was tossed from office before the end of his or her term. Or, as Ulysses likes to quip, he’s “a midwife with a gun.”

     And at each new stop, he phones Penelope to update her on his whereabouts and increasingly fragile state of mind. Kolstad makes us privy to these drawn-out voicemails from the get-go, as Ulysses begins his latest assignment in snowy Normal, Minnesota, population 1,980. It’s a clever device on Kolstad’s part, making the required expository dialogue more palpable, filling us in on who Ulysses is, where he comes from, and why he feels he can never return home again. If nothing else, it causes you to wonder how simpler life might have been had the mythical Ulysses possessed a cell phone to keep Penelope current on his adventures.

     Just imagine him gleefully impressing her with his Trojan Horse stratagem. Alas, our modern-day Ulysses has nothing that enduring to relay – yet. Be assured, he will once the bullets and F-bombs start flying freely in not one, but two, fierce firefights between Ulysses and … well … you name it. That’s because in Normal, perspectives shift and no one is who they seem, including its gladhanding mayor, played by Fonzie himself, Henry Winkler, relocated from neighboring Wisconsin to the so-called Land of Nice.

    The more relevant abutting state is North Dakota, to the west, home to Fargo, famously popularized by the Coens in their titular Oscar-winning film. Clearly, Kolstad and director Ben Wheatley (“Free Fire”) have studied it thoroughly, to the point that it rubbed off on them so deeply that “Normal” can easily be mistaken for “Fargo” lite. Meaning, fewer calories and more cliches, beginning with the myriad dirty secrets the townsfolk are hiding behind their genial exteriors.

     Those mysteries eventually will be revealed, but not before we’re formally introduced to Mayor Kibner (Winkler), sexy barkeep Moira (Lena Headey), and Ulysses’ two intrepid deputies, Mike Nelson (Billy MacLellan) and Blaine Anderson (Ryan Allen), the latter of whom has his heart set on being elected to replace the recently deceased Sheriff Gunderson. Our loyalties to all will reset several times (as was the case in the equally bullet-riddled “Free Fire”) over the course of the film’s 91 minutes, but Odenkirk’s Ulysses will forever remain the pillar of decency and justice. Well, to a point.

     The first half of the movie is paced slowly and deliberately, introducing characters and their disappointingly shallow backstories. Then, all hell breaks loose. An attempted bank robbery almost immediately goes off the rails. And as such, the pace quickens, and so do the jarring edits, along with the mass confusion they cause. It’s the old, “Who’s fighting whom?” An enigma frustratingly enhanced by the distracting lack of proper lighting.

     The errant holdup plays out like a climactic moment. But the film’s only half over, placing Wheatley in the precarious position of having to top it in the flick’s finale. He can’t, and that might be a deal-breaker for most. Not only is it redundant, but it’s also more preposterous and over-stylized. At least Odenkirk remains drolly funny whenever folks stop to reload.

    He’s particularly sharp during Ulysses’ compassionate encounters with the late sheriff’s grieving trans daughter, Alex (Jess McLeod), a military sharpshooter who’s so suicidal, she’s ready to turn the gun on herself. Her scenes are perfectly in keeping with the liberal agenda Kolstad seeks to establish by pointing the finger at how self-serving politicians have allowed once thriving small communities like Normal to physically and morally decay. 

    Thus, leaving these rural hamlets no choice but to seek alternative, sometimes illegal, means of support, such as in Normal, where the population’s collective soul has been sold to a ruthless Japanese syndicate. And this might have been impactful if the men of the yakuza weren’t so flagrantly stereotyped. It’s borderline offensive, but you either go with it or you don’t. But that’s not as bothersome as the enterprise’s generic nature. It all feels so interchangeable with Kolstad’s other properties, “John Wick” and “Nobody.” He wrote all but one of the six films in those franchises. And “Normal” is awfully close in content and title to “Nobody.”

     This places the onus entirely on Odenkirk, and he remains more than up for the challenge. But he’s starting to stagnate, a shocking thing for a star whose career has thrived on reinvention. Like Tennyson’s Ulysses, it’s time for Odenkirk and his latest persona of the everyman hero to move on to new, more engaging expositions so that he may once again “drink life to the lees.”

Movie review

Normal

Rated: R for language and strong bloody violence

Cast: Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, Lena Headey, Jess McLeod, Ryan Allen and Billy MacLellan

Director: Ben Wheatley

Writer: Derek Kolstad

Runtime: 91 minutes

Where: In theaters April 17

Grade: B-