Films for Breakfast

If you’d told me a few years ago that Bob Odenkirk would become a bankable leading man for action movies, I wouldn’t have believed you. But across the Nobody films and now Ben Wheatley’s Normal, he’s tapped into a surprisingly effective lane as a believable action lead. What makes him work isn’t just the choreography – it’s the credibility. His films ground his physicality in a way that feels earned, and he carries himself like a true everyman, the kind of relatable presence that used to define the genre from the ’80s through the early 2000s.

In Normal, Odenkirk leans even further into that persona. He plays Sheriff Ulysses, a drifter of sorts who moves from town to town, serving as a temporary lawman until a new sheriff is elected. It’s a great setup, placing him squarely in that classic, mysterious outsider role. Where Nobody flirted with a quasi-John Wick energy, Wheatley has much more fun here, fully embracing a neo-Western tone that suits Odenkirk surprisingly well. He nails the vibe that the script is clearly going for.

From there, you can probably guess where things go; small-town corruption, Sheriff Ulysses dispatching bad guys in increasingly creative ways, unlikely alliances with locals, and so on. Normal doesn’t pretend to reinvent the wheel, and that’s partly why it works. It leans fully into its genre instincts, committing to its grit and delivering a staggering body count by the time the credits roll.

Where it stumbles is mostly in its comedy and story. The humor rarely lands as sharply as it thinks it does – aside from Odenkirk, who can sell just about any line. And while no one is showing up to a movie like this for narrative complexity, it still feels like something’s missing in terms of tension. The pacing is so brisk that the escalation and stakes never quite settle in.

That said, the film clocks in at a tight 90 minutes (credits included), and it practically launches into its final-act brawl around the 35–40 minute mark. That leaves a solid stretch of near nonstop chaos, which is where the movie really comes alive. Wheatley brings flashes of his signature brutality while keeping things more restrained and accessible than usual.

On a purely visceral level, it works. The choreography and production design carry a real sense of weight and texture, and the stunt work is consistently impressive. There’s a tangible grit to the action that makes every hit land harder. By the finale, the sheer scale and inventiveness of the carnage becomes hard not to admire, even if the throughline is a bit thin.

All in all, Normal is a solid, no-frills addition to Odenkirk’s growing action resume. It doesn’t break new ground, but it reinforces how well he fits into this lane – quietly carving out a niche for old-school, everyman-led action. If nothing else, films like this prove there’s still plenty of mileage in that formula when the craft is this dialed in.