“Of all the things a man can lose, the very worst is his teeth.”
That’s the personal philosophy of Dr. Frank Sangster, D.D.S., who in David Atkins’ directorial debut, Novocaine, finds that yes, a denuded dentrifice is indeed a sorry state of affairs, but a deluded dentist can be far, far worse. Atkins, whose 1993 script Arizona Dream yanked him out of his final year at Columbia University and thrust him onto the top step of the screenwriting ladder, finally gets to direct a film from his own work, and the result is a, ah, toothsome neo-noir tale of duplicitous dames and scheming dental technicians. Christian Szell may have posed the screen’s most famous dental query — “Is it safe?” — but Steve Martin’s Sangster is a far more accessible tooth-yanker: He just wants to be loved. When nobody’s looking. In the chair.
“My dad is a dentist, as are both of my brothers,” says Atkins. “I grew up in a dentist’s office, and I was always most interested in and drawn to the underbelly of the dentist’s office, which was that every once in a while someone would come in and try to scam drugs. I didn’t know what was going on at the time — I just knew that people were reacting to these people a little bit differently. I had always wanted to make a movie about dentists because I think dentists are really cool protagonists. They epitomize the everyman, and also they’re unsung heroes, you know? Nobody loves going to the dentist, and yet the dentist welcomes you, lays you in the chair, takes away your pain, and sends you back out on your way, all with a smile. I think that they’re the firemen of the mouth, in the unsung category.”
Martin’s dentist, who as the film opens appears to have successfully drilled his way into the very root of the American dream, finds his otherwise perfect world sent spinning off its axis when a smoldering brunette named Susan Ivey walks into his office one day and tries to scam a prescription for pharmaceutical-grade narcotics. Sangster’s no dummy; he knows he’s being played, but, inexplicably, he goes along for the ride. Later on, Sangster ends up playing doctor with Miss Ivey, which throws his engagement to his catty dental hygienist Jean (Laura Dern) into question. From there it’s only a molar’s throw to a dead body or two, a visit from the police, and the runaway deconstruction of his heretofore “normal” life.
More than anything, Novocaine smacks of the lurid morality plays of the old E.C. comics, where nefarious spouses on both sides of the gender fence were routinely served up a frosty dish of poetic justice with a slice of gore on the side. Novocaine‘s final, shocking image and the eventual fate of Dr. Sangster are straight out of Tales From the Crypt 101, though Atkins never goes for the quick fix. Instead, the film is a looping hell-ride for both Sangster and the audience. Just when you think it can’t get any worse for our peroxide-and-baking soda protagonist, something even more awful jumps out and grinds him down a little more.
“Noir was the chassis on which the script was built,” admits Atkins. “It has all these conventions and clichés, and you more or less know going in what’s likely to happen. So I tried to go in the exact opposite direction, and maybe make you think we’re going in one way when in fact we’re going in another.”
As for Martin, who’s known more for his absurdist comedic skills than for his work in indie thrillers like Novocaine (his brilliant, recent turn in David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner notwithstanding), Atkins’ film gives him a chance to break out of the codified roles that Hollywood has more often than not cast him in. The Martin of Novocaine is less a wild and crazy guy than simply a guy, trying to get along and doing remarkably well, who becomes by degrees both wild, and, presumably, crazy. All that laughing gas couldn’t have helped matters, either.
But wait — Steve Martin as a dentist? Haven’t we seen this before? Well, sort of — Martin’s turn as the evil dentist in 1986’s Little Shop of Horrors predates Novocaine and is itself preceded by the actor’s turn as mad Dr. Maxwell Edison — of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” fame — in Michael Schultz’s scattershot Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band some 23 years ago. Did all this previous medical mayhem on Martin’s part influence Atkins’ decision to cast the comic in the dark-as-pitch comedics of Novocaine?
Not really.
“I had not seen Steve’s part in Little Shop,” says Atkins, “and I made a point of not watching that because I didn’t want any part of that to seep into my film. I wanted to make a really quick, fast-moving, twisty, turny roller-coaster ride of a movie, so that it’s not just a regular ‘Hollywood thriller’-sort of thing, but an independent, strangeoid thriller.”
It’s not your average thriller, obviously. Is the world ready for a Steve Martin film that lacks both cruel footwear of any sort or obvious gags predicated on the notion Steve Martin = lotsa laffs?
“Not every single person in the world is going to be jumping for joy about this film,” cracks Atkins. “It’s different, and if you want a ‘Steve Martin-type broad comedy,’ then this is going to be a stretch for you. If, on the other hand, you happen to like Steve Martin as a person, and as an ‘actor,’ then it’s going to be a great movie for you.”
And like its namesake drug, it might just leave you numb all over. 
Novocaine opens in local theatres this Friday, Nov. 16. See Film Listings for review.
This article appears in November 16 • 2001.