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‘John Wick’ Meets ‘Fargo’ in HBO Max’s New #1 Streaming Smash
Despite being a celebrated comedian and popular character actor for almost the entirety of his career, Bob Odenkirk somehow transformed into an action star in the 2020s. It started with Nobody, a 2020 film written by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad, where he starred as a former assassin who becomes a family man. It was an interesting gimmick to see someone like Odenkirk, who wasn’t typically associated with the genre, star in a fast-paced, violent revenge thriller with some dark comedy sprinkled in, but his performance was so good that it became more than just a one-off. While Nobody did get a sequel, Normal was a different type of action vehicle for Odenkirk that satirizes small town communities in the style of Fargo.
Odenkirk stars as Ulysses, the new Sheriff of the town of Normal, Minnesota, which appears at first to be a run-of-the-mill small community where not much happens. Although Ulysses finds it strange how unwilling Mayor Kibner (Henry Winkler) is to give out any sort of specific details about the town, his suspicions are heightened when a botched robbery at a local bank turns into a coverup. Normal is the perfect “one-man army” thriller about a lone lawman doing his best to face off with a corrupt institution, and director Ben Wheatley’s background in horror ensures that it’s pulpy and gory enough to stand out amongst other John Wick imitators.
‘Normal’ Is an All-Out Action Bonanza
Normal works because it creates an underdog story that is not entirely implausible; it is explained that Ulysses is a veteran law enforcement officer who has become insular and lonely, which is why he is assigned to a post in the middle of nowhere. He’s seemingly someone that the residents of Normal don’t have to worry about because of how ineffective he is, but Ulysses immediately starts causing problems when he tries to show enthusiasm about his position and actually do his job. It’s an effective piece of commentary on how small communities can become closed-off to insiders, presenting hostility to anyone who tries to enter it.
Since Ulysses isn’t aware of the secret history of Normal, he is caught off-guard when a small crime becomes part of a massive conspiracy that involves international syndicates and smuggling operations. It’s again a scenario that makes some sense; since Normal is the last place that anyone would expect to be the centerpiece to be a criminal treasure trove, it has managed to avoid being snuffed out by authorities and rival gangs for generations.
Normal is another smart screenplay from Kolstad because it is well-paced and offers just the right amount of information to get the viewer intrigued about the broader world that it is set within. In John Wick, there are details about the Continental that hint at the underworld of assassins that operate behind closed doors, and Nobody is able to offer similarly intriguing clues about the protagonist’s backstory and how he came to be a covert, highly-trained killer. In Normal, the idiosyncrasies within the town all point to a secret that connects all the residents, which puts Ulysses at an even greater disadvantage when they determine that he knows too much to stay alive. It’s a perfect film of escalation, as the action gradually gets more extreme as more citizens are drawn into the bloodshed and the conspirators begin to suspect that their closely-guarded stashhouse is at risk of being discovered by the most unlikely of investigators.
‘Normal’ Has a Dark and Quirky Sense of Humor
Normal has a compelling hook because Ulysses is brought in as a replacement for a previous Sheriff who was killed after he learned too much, which makes his mission to take down the town official feel more like a quest of vengeance. While eliminating the criminals is just an abstract concept that is not necessarily emotionally affecting, it’s set up that by exposing this secret, Ulysses will stop other sheriffs from being sucked into the conspiracy, allowing anyone else trapped in the town to leave. There’s also an emotional component to the story involving the character of Alex Gunderson (Jess McLeod), the daughter of the previous sheriff, who teams up with Ulysses to get vengeance. Although it would have been very easy for this to feel like a cheesy and unnecessary subplot, Odenkirk is such an inherently likable actor that he’s able to make the surrogate paternal relationship feel completely sincere and much more emotional than it had any right to be.
Normal is proof that there’s room for creative action films done on a small scale, as it benefits from being shot with practical stunts on real locations with authentic makeup and gore effects, which are surely a result of Wheatley’s directorial touch. Given how many post-John Wick action films feel like complete copycats of the original 2014 masterpiece, it’s nice to see something like Normal that draws from a wider variety of influences, as there are a lot of similarities between Ulysses and Odenkirk’s character from the first season of FX’s Fargo. While no one would have expected that Odenkirk would become an action star after a near-fatal heart attack and an acclaimed run on one of the most beloved drama shows of the 21st century, it is an exciting new chapter that Normal helps solidify as being far more than just a one-off experiment.
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