‘Normal’ review: Bob Odenkirk’s small town sheriff heads Ben Wheatley’s uninspired shoot-’em-up

Dir: Ben Wheatley. US/Canada. 2025. 90mins

A new sheriff discovers a small town has big secrets in Normal, a routine hyper-violent actioner with plenty of bloodshed but not enough fun. Bob Odenkirk reunites with Nobody franchise creator Derek Kolstad for the story of a disillusioned cop who unexpectedly finds himself in the literal crosshairs of everyone within the seemingly folksy community to which he has just moved. Director Ben Wheatley employs some of the same close-quarters mayhem he brought to his 2016 shoot-‘em-up Free Fire, but his new film lacks the wit or originality necessary to elevate such standard genre fare.

Rarely achieves the gonzo extremes promised by the premise

Normal premieres in Toronto’s Midnight Madness section, with potential buyers likely intrigued by this latest work from Kolstad, who also created John Wick. Veteran English filmmaker Wheatley enjoyed his biggest hit with 2023’s Meg 2: The Trench ($398 million worldwide), but the limits of Odenkirk’s commercial appeal may well be illustrated by action sequel Nobody 2’s underwhelming $37 million gross to date. This B-movie may appeal chiefly to hardcore action fans, with mainstream crossover unlikely. 

Ulysses (Odenkirk) has been called in to become the interim sheriff in Normal, Minnesota — population under 2,000 — for two months following the tragic death of the town’s beloved top cop. Adjusting to laidback Midwestern life, he hopes to pull himself out of a personal rut after enduring a painful divorce and nursing a private trauma in his professional past. But after coming to like the unassuming locals, he responds to a call for an in-progress bank robbery, only to be shocked when his fellow police officers start opening fire on him.

Odenkirk, a popular comedian who garnered critical acclaim as a dramatic actor thanks to Better Call Saul, became an unlikely action star with 2021’s Nobody, in which he portrayed a deceptively ordinary guy who’s actually a lethal government operative. In Normal, whose story Odenkirk developed with Kolstad, he plays a variation of that franchise’s troubled everyman, his character’s bushy mustache and reserved disposition suggesting someone who wants to sit on the sidelines of life.

Normal’s surprising plot twist involves something in the bank vault that Ulysses was not meant to see — something that binds the town in a shared criminal cover-up — and once that revelation comes to light, Normal’s citizens will stop at nothing to kill him and the two bank robbers, Lori (Reena Jolly) and Keith (Brendan Fletcher), before they tell the press what they now know about the community. The scenario sets the stage for a possibly raucous orgy of crunching fight scenes and operatic gun battles as Ulysses tries to stay alive over the course of one intense, snowy night.

But those expected narrative fireworks fail to materialise, largely due to the fact that Wheatley rarely achieves the gonzo extremes promised by such a premise. Audiences will be treated to decapitations, punctured eyeballs, impalements and bodies exploding into bloody pulps, but the nasty thrill that usually accompanies such violence in over-the-top modern action films is noticeably missing. As a result, Wheatley’s hyperbolic set pieces feel perfunctory rather than euphoric or hilariously bombastic.

Playing this fill-in sheriff who long ago stopped caring about being a diligent cop, Odenkirk displays shades of the archetypal grizzled good guy in Westerns who alone must stand up to the forces of evil. Unfortunately, Kolstad’s script doesn’t provide the character with interesting layers, and Ulysses’ shameful history, once it’s divulged, is fairly pedestrian. The actor has demonstrated his fight chops in the Nobody films, and here  punches and shoots with absolute authority. But considering that the novelty of this renowned funnyman dispatching endless baddies has already been significantly exhausted, Normal’s shootouts have little of the surprise that made the first Nobody such a treat. 

The filmmakers introduce a second twist in which former rivals will reluctantly team up against a new, more imposing foe. Without spoiling any plot points, let it be said that this, too, proves disappointing – although at least Wheatley ups the graphic violence to such a degree that Normal becomes diverting, if never especially inspired. Offering wan satire about the smallmindedness of Midwestern communities while making halfhearted stabs at poignancy once Ulysses begins to regain his sense of purpose, this shoot-‘em-up mostly fires blanks.