| Director | Dan Berk, Robert Olsen |
|---|---|
| Genre | action film, action thriller, comedy film, thriller film |
| Runtime | 110 min |
| Country | Canada, South Africa, United States |
| Budget | $18 million |
| Box office | $34.5 million |
Nathan Caine is an introvert with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (CIPA) working as an assistant manager at a trust credit union in San Diego. His co-worker Sherry Margrave is interested in him, but Nathan is hesitant due to his condition and inexperience with women. At a bar with Sherry, Nathan encounters a middle-school bully who calls him "Novocaine". In retaliation, Sherry tricks the bully into drinking a shot of hot sauce; the two then spend the night together at Nathan's home.
The next morning, a gang of three men led by Simon Greenly rob the credit union. Simon murders Nathan's boss Nigel after he refuses to surrender the vault code. When Simon threatens Sherry, Nathan gives him the code. Police arrive and a shootout ensues in which the robbers escape with Sherry as a hostage. After placing a tourniquet on a wounded policeman, Nathan steals a police car and pursues the robbers' cars. When they split up, Nathan follows the car with only one robber, Ben. Nathan fights Ben in a restaurant kitchen and shoots him dead with the wounded policeman's gun, which he retrieves from a deep fryer, burning his hand.
With help from his friend Roscoe, Nathan tracks down Zeno, a tattoo artist who worked on Ben's arm. Interrogating Zeno, he learns Ben's last name. Nathan runs a credit check on Ben and acquires his home address. Ben had booby-trapped his house and Nathan ends up stuck in a snare trap. In desperation, he calls Roscoe. Another robber, Ben's brother Andre, discovers Nathan while searching for Ben and shortly after is informed by Simon that Ben is dead. Andre begins to torture Nathan, who feigns feeling pain. Roscoe arrives and together they overpower and kill Andre. Police officers Mincy Langston and Coltraine Duffy arrive at the house and arrest Roscoe, whose distraction allows Nathan to escape.
Nathan locates Sherry and Simon at an auto shop, where Simon reveals that Sherry is his sister and accomplice. She originally intended to seduce Nathan to learn the bank vault code but developed real feelings for him and was horrified that Simon needlessly murdered her boss, Nigel. As Nathan is heartbroken upon learning the truth about Sherry, Simon tries to kill him against Sherry's protests, before Simon is soon shot by an arriving Coltraine before he could kill Sherry, while Nathan is arrested. Simon in turn shoots Coltraine dead and wounds Mincy, escaping in the ambulance holding Nathan. Sherry pursues the ambulance with Mincy and Roscoe.
Nathan is able to slip out of the handcuff by dislocating his thumb and uses a defibrillator on Simon, causing him to crash. The two continue to fight, with Simon ending up breaking Nathan's arm in the process. Sherry arrives and attacks Simon while Roscoe drives Mincy to the hospital. As Simon is about to kill Sherry, Nathan injects himself with adrenaline and brutally finishes Simon by impaling his exposed fractured arm bone up through Simon's jaw and brain, killing him. As an exhausted Nathan is tended by a tearful Sherry, he falls unconscious from his injuries.
Nathan awakes in a hospital two weeks later, having been put in a medically-induced coma and a full body cast to recover from his injuries. He learns from Mincy that he has been given a deal of six months of house arrest and five years of probation for his actions due to saving the life of the police officer after the shootout.
One year later, Nathan visits Sherry in prison, who has eight months left on her sentence. They share a slice of cherry pie, which Sherry had introduced him to on their first date. As the prison guards lead Sherry back to her cell, Nathan chews a piece of pie and smiles.