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Speaker 1: All right. So normally I have a very fancy introduction

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that I do that talks about what the movie is

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in some kind of cool or mysterious way. But this

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week I just needed to get the intro done and

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I did not have time to write it. And as

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you can tell, it's already late. You're getting this on Tuesday.

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You should have gotten yesterday, you know. Just keep me

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in your thoughts in prayers. Please keep me in your

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thoughts in prayers. This week's movie is Normal. I'm Ronald

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Young Junior, and I'm leaving the theater. Alright, This is

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Ronald and I am leaving the theater after seeing Normal.

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Normal written by Derek Colstad, directed by Ben Wheatley, starring

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Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, Lena Heady, Rina Jolly and as usual.

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For complete listing of the cast and crew, you can

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go to the link in our show notes It is

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just Me today. Normal is a film that is billed

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as from the creators of John Wick. Who is the

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writer Derek Colstad, who all so did Nobody one and two.

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He wrote the first three John Wicks. And of course

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the connection here is Bob Odenkirk, who was in Nobody

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one and two is now in this one Normal, which

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I think is a little bit of brand confusion, and

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that is an in name and it is Bob Odenkirk

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and yet another action movie. And the premise is that

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Bob Odenkirk is a sheriff in the town of Normal,

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small town in USA. I don't remember what state it

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was in, but he's in Normal. And in Normal, everybody

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is doing their thing. It's a small town. They found

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out a way to manage themselves in this small town,

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and in this small town for some reason, they are

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all flush with cash. Everybody's making it work. One of

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the bits of narration we get from Odinkirk early in

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the movie is that despite what the rest of the

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country is going through, Normal is seemingly able to thrive.

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The movie opens with some bits about the Yakuza, and

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there is a Yakuza connection to Normal. And what we

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find out later is that this Yakuza connection and this

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outsider sheriff Bob Odenkirk, who is interim sheriff in Normal

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at the time for eight weeks while they pick a replacement,

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he is now He is now in opposition to what

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Normal wants, which is to take the percentage of their

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goods from the yakuza and continue having their small town

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life no matter what the cost, and the cost tends

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to be at human lives of people caught in the crossfire,

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including this interim sheriff. You have Bob Odenkirk, who comes

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from a dark past, who is essentially running. That's why

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he's taking this temporary sheriff job first and normal, and

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it's indicated that he had done it in another place,

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and so he has been doing it from place to

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place because he's trying to outrun the air quote sins

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of his past. And I think a lot of what's

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going on here is that the reason why they selected

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him is because he's a guy who's like, my name's Bennett,

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I'm not in it. He doesn't want to be a

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part of anything else that's going on. Bob Odenkirk was

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the right selection for that part of the role. I

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would say, there again brand confusion because he is playing

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a lot of action roles recently, so turning this on

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it's called normal. He's everyman and also he is to

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be a one man army. If you watch the trailers,

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that's essentially what he ends up being and that's basically

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the bulk of the movie. It's not a long movie.

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It's ninety minutes, and overall, I think it's pretty good.

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I think I liked it for the most part. I

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do have a few quibbles. I think in a lot

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of ways, this movie is Hot Fuzz meets Assault on

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Precinct thirteen meets Thirty Days of no in that there's

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a snowstorm and there is gun warfare going from one

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part of this town to another. It's basically him against

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other police officers, which gives AsSalt on Precinct thirteen, and

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the whole town is in on it, which gives Hot Fuzz.

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So all in a blender. I really like Bob Odenkirk.

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I liked his scenes with Lena Heaty, who is criminally

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underused in this film. She's great with Odenkirk. There's real chemistry.

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They use her to get more backstory out of him.

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That's really good. And I realized the reason why you

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get Odenkirk is because he does such a good job

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with this dark past monologue. He's very good at playing

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a good guy who maybe has some demons or something

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going on in the back of his mind. The bad

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is that there was a lot of ways in which

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the score, which was very serious, was working against the

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more comedic bits. There's an instance in which a person

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gets an ear shot off. I know this is meant

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to be funny. There's interactions between the sheriffs and the

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townspeople that's meant to be funny, but they have this

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very serious score happening in the background, which I think

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undercuts the parts of it that are supposed to be

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laugh out loud funny that we're supposed to be having

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a good time at even some of the dialogue. Because

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of what's going on, it doesn't come off as funny

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as it could. You either need there's something about the

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humor that is in something like John Wick that is

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delivered in silence, or it's delivered with a look that

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Keanu Reeves gives, but it is typically not undercut by

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a score, or it's working along with the score, meaning

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that if it's sped up. If you're falling downstairs, then

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the score is working with you falling down the stairs.

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If you're throwing knife, if you're throwing knives, a knife

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after knife after knife after knife, the score is working

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with you. If you keep getting thrown through glass. The

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score again is working with you this one. It does

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not seem like the score is working along with the

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action that I'm actually seeing on the screen. It's a

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little messy and it's strangely paced, meaning that again, for

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a ninety minute movie, I feel like like you have

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a chance to make some things seem make some things,

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make it seem like some things are a miss, and

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then you speed it up, and then maybe you slow

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it down just a little bit, and then you speed

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it up all the way to the end. You only

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got ninety minutes. This isn't rocket science in this case,

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You're not. You shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, and

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it feels like they're reinventing the wheel in a lot

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of ways. It feels like they well, not reinventing the wheels,

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but it seems like they kind of forgot the basics

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of making a film like this, which is just I mean,

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you put the heat on, you let it keep going,

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and you're hustled to the end. That's what it is.

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I just said it. I know I'm repeating myself, but

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that's not what they do here. It slows down a bit.

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There's more backstory given, and I think the first thirty

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minutes are way slower than they should be. I almost

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feel like if this was if this had been one

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hour of a television show in terms of setup, where

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should we be at the end of forty four minutes.

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By the end of forty four minutes, I mean, you

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have eight other episodes, so it's going to be a

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lot slower when you only have ninety minutes. By the

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end of twenty minutes, we should be deep into having

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our senses perked. What's going on? Is this mystery unfolding?

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And if you're going to be slow in the first

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thirty minutes when there's only an hour left, especially as

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the actions beginning to build and I mean stuff's about

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to go down, then I feel like there you really

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have to consider what what is this for? What story

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have we told here? And in the first thirty minutes,

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I remember looking at my watching me like, man, we

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better hasten a We don't have much longer to go,

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and we've only just now gotten to who is this person?

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Who is the former sheriff's child? So yeah, I think overall,

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a you know, pretty good film, and it goes off

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the rails a bit towards the end, not because of

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the acting. All of the actors I feel like clocked

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in and did their job. They did what was in

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the script. I think editing and sequencing was a bit

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of an issue. This was a film I saw after

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seeing Protector, and there was a few issues where I

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was like, Okay, some of this is a little bit

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amateurish in terms of how they're sequencing this together, what

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this scene looks like, the decisions of just the efficiency

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of filming an action sequence. There was one in particular

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in which a sign and kills a person. We know

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it's gonna happen, we see it coming, and they milk

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it in a way that I thought, Hey, as soon

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as we see that sign wobble, and as soon as

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we see that this guy needs to be taken out, that,

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as far as I'm concerned, this this should already be happening,

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Like the next thing I should see is a sign

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hitting this person as a matter of fact, or it

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should wobble and I should forget that the sign wobbled,

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and then later it goes and hits that guy. But

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it wobbled, and we see it wobble again, and we

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know it's gonna hit this guy and then it does,

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and I remember thinking, huh, I wonder, I wonder how

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that worked in editing or what was the discussion they

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had when they made that scene. That being said, this

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movie is is It's April, and this is pre blockbuster season,

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so it's getting a little warm. Maybe you want to

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be outside, maybe you want to go out of your

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house and do an activity. This is a good movie

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for that. This is a good uh. This is a

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good little date night movie. If you're picking an action movie,

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this is a good date night movie to get you

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warmed up for the heavy hitters that are about to

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come in the next couple of weeks, whether at the

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end of April into May as we enter a blockbuster season.

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With all that being said, it's a three star movie,

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silid three star. At one point I thought it could

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have been a four star movie in the first act.

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Then it dropped down to three point twenty five, and

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then it dropped down to three, and I knew it

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couldn't get any lower than a three because I did

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enjoy it. It was fine. If it was on I'd

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watch it, I'd watch the rest of it. I think

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I would watch this movie two or three times. I

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would not watch it more than three times. After the

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third time, I'd be like, let's watch Assault on Precne

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thirteen or Hot Fuzz or Thirty Days of Night. But

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this one maybe I've had enough. Maybe the fact and

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it's not necessarily that it is eminently derivative of those,

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but enough so that I would rather watch a better

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version of that than watch this, or go back and

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watch Nobody, which actually don't even remember the plot. I

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just know that Bob Odenkirk is a family man that

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can also kill. So with that, Leaving the Theater is

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a production of Oh It's Big Ron Studios. I mixed

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this episode and by the time you're hearing this, there

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have been many many episodes of Leaving the Theater in

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between the end of this three day four movie marathon. Again.

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Wednesday it was Project Hill Mary, Thursday it was Hoppers,

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and then Protector. It is now Friday, and I just

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saw Normal. I've seen countless movies between then and now,

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according to your ears, according to what you've heard in

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the feed. But this was enough work to get me

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a little bit ahead, meaning that I've had some time

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to rest in between editing this show and working on Heartbreaker.

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Working on this is leaving the theater, working on Wait

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for It, and any of the side projects that I

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do to make money and keep doing other work. I

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say all that to say that this is a bit

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of work. It's a bit of labor. I'm a little

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bit tired. I still have other things to do. Tonight

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I'm going to my friend Marcus's comedy show, and tomorrow

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I'm going to see more movies, this time just for fun.

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I'm not recording anything. I'm just gonna watch them and

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say to myself, huh uh huh, huh uh huh, rather

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than record anything about them. I'm not gonna make content

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with those, just gonna enjoy them. So that's four days

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of movie watching. My life is a lot of work.

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Doing this job is a lot of work. And if

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you enjoy these reviews and you get this far and

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you hear this pitch and you still have not joined

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the Patreon, I would encourage you to do so. Joining

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the Patreon you get access to a number of extra features.

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I will not list them all right now. You could

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jump into the Patreon and see them. But most importantly,

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you help shows like this to exist. You are supporting

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independent media. You're supporting one independent media. If that means

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something to you, go to patreon dot com slash oh

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It's big Ron, or go to the link in our

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show notes. Show art from Heather Wilder. Theme music by

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the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. For more information about normal, check

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out our show notes. You call me on Instagram, Blue Sky, TikTok,

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threads or letterboxed at Owitz Big Rond that's at O

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h I T S b I g R O N.

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You can find out more about this show on other

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Owis Big Round Studio shows by following us on Instagram

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at Owits Big Rond Studios. Leaving the theater will be

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back soon. Thanks for listening. I'm Ronald Young Junior and

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I'm throwing knives a knife after knife after knife after

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knife