Normal (dir. Ben Wheatley)

by Jack Martin | May 14, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 88 mins

UK Distributor: Vertigo Releasing

UK Release Date: 15 May 2026

WHO’S IN NORMAL?

Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, Lena Headey, Reena Jolly, Ryan Allen, Billy MacLellan, Brendan Fletcher, Peter Shinkoda, Jess McLeod

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Ben Wheatley (director), Derek Kolstad (writer, producer), Bob Odenkirk and Marc Provissiero (producers), Harry Gregson-Williams and Ryder McNair (composers), Armando Salas (cinematographer), Jonathan Amos (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

In the quiet town of Normal, Minnesota, a newly-arrived sheriff (Odenkirk) uncovers a major conspiracy…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON NORMAL?

Much like David Lowery or Rob Reiner before him, Ben Wheatley’s filmography is fascinatingly diverse. He’ll go from dark and intense thrillers like Kill List and High-Rise to psychedelic mind-trips such as A Field in England and In the Earth, while somewhere in between dabbling in big bombastic action fare like Free Fire, Meg 2: The Trench, and now Normal which comes with its own hot package duo of writer Derek Kolstad and lead actor Bob Odenkirk, both fresh off their successful collaboration on the Nobody movies.

Wheatley’s collection of films may vary in terms of tone and genre, but most if not all of them come with an extremely playful and borderline ridiculous style that, regardless of whether or not you’re into his work, makes it quite enjoyable whenever he has something new coming out. Normal is a fine example of this, for while the mere combination of Kolstad and Odenkirk is already enough to entice action fans, especially those who enjoyed both the first Nobody and last year’s surprisingly solid sequel, it is Wheatley’s gleeful approach that makes the film all the more enjoyable in its inane silliness.

Odenkirk stars as Ulysses, a rigid and by-the-book lawman who’s brought in to temporarily fill the role of sheriff in the quiet snow-covered Minnesota town of Normal, after the seemingly straightforward death of its most recent occupant. Things seem pretty, erm, normal throughout the town at first, with Ulysses doing his job competently while making friendly connections with some of the locals, including bar owner Moira (Lena Headey) and the town’s mayor Kibner (Henry Winkler). But one day, a bank robbery by inept criminals Lori (Reena Jolly) and Keith (Brendan Fletcher) leads Ulysses to quickly discover that the whole town is keeping a rather unusual secret, one that may or may not involve the Yakuza, but is definitely something that they’ll do anything to preserve, even if it means killing their interim sheriff during a lengthy round of gunfire in the middle of a thick snowstorm.

The plot itself will surely ring familiar to those who know films like Assault on Precinct 13 and even Hot Fuzz like the back of their gun-wielding hand, and admittedly Kolstad’s script is perhaps a bit too quick to reveal its hand rather than building up the mystery and suspense. However, there never seems to be a point where Kolstad or Wheatley, or even most members of the cast, are asking the viewer to take any of it seriously. Case in point, the violence in this movie which is already over-the-top with cars exploding and people being blown up by rocket launchers or sticks of dynamite, but then you’ll have a few sequences that come close to going full Looney Tunes with the kind of improbable physics and intricate slapstick you’d find in a regular Daffy Duck cartoon (though of course a lot more people die here). Sometimes it doesn’t fit very well with the intensity of the scene, but the serious commitment to the unseriousness of this cartoonish violence is admirable, to say the least.

Wheatley, in particular, is revelling in the nonsense of Kolstad’s script with a directorial style that is energetic and at times gloriously unhinged, which at this point we’ve come to expect from the same guy that brought to life that hammer scene in Kill List, or whose last theatrically-released film saw Jason Statham outrun a giant prehistoric shark on a Jet Ski armed with explosive harpoons. While nothing quite as outlandish happens in Normal (to its slight detriment), the director still retains the same zappy spirit that elevates the material and one’s overall enjoyment of it. He also gets some fun performances out of his exceptionally game cast, with Odenkirk impressing in a more restrained lead turn than in his Nobody movies that sees the former Saul Goodman go more sardonic and realistically weighed down than usual, but with enough room for him to still feel like a fairly grounded and likeable protagonist with a clear sense of right and wrong.

It is overall a pretty fun ride with its blend of B-movie plotting and overblown carnage reminiscent of something like Death Wish 3, but Normal still suffers from a number of narrative issues. The first act is primarily a slow-burn intended to flesh out some of the characters, but there is strangely little depth to most of them which makes certain moments with them, especially ones later on that bring them full circle, feel more than a little weightless. Even when the action gets underway, it can become somewhat repetitive with no solid structure to pace them out thoroughly (a similar problem arose in Wheatley’s Free Fire, which was also simply a feature-length shootout, albeit far more so than this film). Things finally start to come together during a third act that goes in one or two unexpected areas, particularly when characters are faced with a bigger threat than armed locals, though the note that it eventually bows out on – while still quite entertaining – again seems as though it’s lacking in certain areas, namely stakes or even ultimate satisfaction.

Still, there’s enough to enjoy about Normal that makes it a fun B-movie experience, with the director in particular doing the heavy lifting for a script that doesn’t quite know how to utilise its familiar but still promising concept. It may not be as accomplished as Kolstad and Odenkirk’s previous collaborations, but with a solid and unpredictable filmmaker like Ben Wheatley at the helm, Normal eventually becomes anything but.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Normal is an enjoyably over-the-top action movie which director Ben Wheatley injects with plenty of cartoonish violence and sardonic humour, enough to disguise the flimsy structure of Derek Kolstad’s script.