Bob Odenkirk continues his new career as the everyman action hero in Normal, a cynically bleak and gonzo action thriller co-written by Odenkirk with John Wick creator Derek Kolstad. The film is directed by Ben Wheatley, who brings the same kind of gunplay seen in his single-location mayhem spectacle Free Fire from 2017.
The story is set in a Fargo-esque wholesome town in Minnesota called Normal, where Ulysses (Odenkirk) arrives as interim sheriff after the previous sheriff was found dead in the snow in strange circumstances. Ulysses is a decent but depressed man battling a drinking problem, separated from his wife after a violent end to his last job.
Everywhere he looks, Ulysses encounters goofy, small-town normality, with no crime beyond petty neighbour disputes. His deputy Mike (Billy MacLellan) is supportive and thrilled that they share almost exactly the same moustache, while the mayor (Henry Winkler) is smoothly satisfied, and local bar owner Moira (Lena Headey) seems content with the bland uneventfulness of the place.
Yet something is very wrong. A bank robbery in the one-horse town sets in train events that reveal to Ulysses that everything about Normal, like the blandly prosperous law practice in Sydney Pollack's The Firm, rests on a single, awful secret he is about to uncover. The result is entertaining and bizarre chaos, anchored by Odenkirk's hangdog air of gloomy resignation to the violent mess he must clean up.
