Bob Odenkirk is surely an interesting actor to watch. At first, he drew my attention via his scene-stealing supporting turn in American TV drama series “Breaking Bad”, and then he took the center in the following spin-off TV drama series “Better Call Saul”, which incidentally garnered him a series of Emmy nominations. Meanwhile, he also showed more of his versatile talent via a number of notable films including Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated film “The Post” (2017), and then there came “Nobody” (2023), where he cheerfully entered the realm of John Wick movies.

In case of Ben Wheatley’s 2025 film “Normal”, what Odenkirk does here is not so far from what he previously did in “Nobody” and its following 2025 sequel. This time, he actually played a really ordinary dude who just happens to get himself involved in a very violent situation, and the movie works to some degree as he ably balances his plain lead character between humor and gravitas.

After the prologue scene set in Japan, the screenplay by Derek Kolstad, who incidentally wrote the screenplay for both “John Wick” (2014) and “Nobody”, quickly establishes how Odenkirk’s plain policeman hero, Sheriff Ulysses, has worked in a little town located somewhere in Wisconsin. As reflected by its very name, the town looks pretty normal and boring without much trouble, and that is quite fine for Sheriff Ulysses. After all, he recently came to the town as an interim sheriff to be replaced sooner or later, and he has been quite contented with filling his position day by day while getting to know some of the town residents at times. 

However, Sheriff Ulysses begins to sense something odd during the funeral of his recently deceased predecessor, who died outside his house under a rather suspicious circumstance. According to a town doctor, that was just a very unfortunate accident, but Sheriff Ulysses comes to have some reservation on that after he notices a young woman who turns out to be his dead predecessor’s daughter. For some unknown reason, she is not allowed to attend her father’s funeral, and she does not talk that much about the reason even when she comes to have a chance for some private talk with Sheriff Ulysses.

Still, Sheriff Ulysses prefers to do as little as possible, but then there comes a much bigger problem. A couple of small-time criminals attempt to rob the only bank in the town, but, what do you know, this bank turns out to be not your average rural bank at all, and it does not take much time for our sheriff hero to get involved more into this increasingly dangerous situation. He sincerely tries to resolve this crisis as soon as possible without causing any unnecessary mess at all, but then he soon finds himself on the line of fire along with those two unfortunate criminals.

What is eventually revealed next will not surprise you that much if you have ever watched “John Wick” and its several sequels – or John Carpenter’s classic action thriller film “Assault on Precinct 13” (1976). With a very few figures willing to help him, Sheriff Ulysses must defend himself in front of a big bunch of unexpected opponents ready to eliminate him by any means necessary, and, of course, he turns out to be quite resourceful. Fortunately for him and his few comrades, there are a heap of weapons available to them, and the movie has some nasty fun with how they corner their opponents in one way or another.

As the movie doles out its rather exaggerated actions along the story, the movie also shows a bit of seriousness as our hero shows some compassion and understanding to those few figures around him. While not asking too much, he generously provides a warm shelter to his dead predecessor’s daughter, and she certainly appreciates that. In case of those two criminals, they turn out to be more sympathetic, and we see why Sheriff Ulysses comes to care about them a lot more than expected.

And we get to know a bit more about our hero. Not so surprisingly, he has some dark past he is still struggling to deal with, and there is a little ironic scene where Sheriff Ulysses eventually confronts that dark past as phlegmatically talking with one of his opponents, who is incidentally about to kill him after showing him a little generosity.   

In the end, the movie expectedly culminates to a comically intense climax full of extreme violence, and we surely get some fun and entertainment while often wincing a lot for good reasons. Just like he did in “Nobody” and its sequel, Odenkirk willingly throws himself into a lot of chaos and mayhem, and his considerable commitment is one of the main reasons why the movie can continue to hold our attention. Although most of the supporting characters in the film are more or less than cardboard figures to be eliminated sooner or later, a number of supporting performers around Odenkirk dutifully fill their respective spots as much as required, and Henry Winkler is particularly hilarious when his supporting character makes an unexpected exit in the middle of the film.  

In conclusion, “Normal” can be regarded as a merely substandard variation of what we have seen from “John Wick” and “Nobody”, but it is a mostly watchable genre product mainly thanks to its lead actor’s talent and presence. In my humble opinion, he really needs to move onto some other area for more change and advance in his career, and I am sure that he will do that sooner or later.