Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk) has a lot going on. A marriage on the fritz. Heavy job trauma. In search of a break, he takes on an interim sheriff job in the small Minnesota town of Normal, a place of tranquil snowy vibes. On the surface, it appears the sort of place where the most exciting thing that happens is a moose accidentally puncturing a paint can. Perfect for Ulysses. Of course, Normal is an action/suspense thriller movie, so the town naturally has a few secrets and grisly tricks up its sleeve. All that peacefulness goes up in smoke when an amateur bank robbery uncovers the town’s hidden side.

As chaos grips the town, Ulysses quickly becomes the target of folks looking to ensure all Normal’s secrets stay buried. Allies become enemies. Criminals become cohorts. All bets are off as a blizzard descends on the formerly sleepy town and the bullets begin flying. So much for that reprieve.

Derek Kolstad’s Normal screenplay works best in its first act when it emphasizes quiet suspense and dry comedy. Both elements shrewdly underline an initial uncertainty about Normal’s residents. As Ulysses meets folks like a yarn store owner who always has a police scanner playing or a hardware shop manager constantly chewing on a nail, Kolstad’s script entertainingly dances with ambiguity. Are these Midwestern souls just eccentric? Or are they hiding something more devious? There’s a fine high-wire tonal act in these quite entertaining early scenes.

Director Ben Wheatley and casting director Carmen Kotyk accentuate that approach by populating the town with character actors who look like ordinary people. If the likes of Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, or Daniel Bernhardt populated this hamlet, it would give away Normal’s game too soon. Happily, the film instead opts for affable and believably malleable actors like Billy MacLellan, David Lawrence Brown, and Lauren Cochrane to play Ulysses’ new neighbors. These same actors could just as easily play townsfolk in something like Get Frosty.

All this well-orchestrated precariousness gets punctured with a (literal) bang halfway through Kolstad’s script. While the moment things flip from peculiar to perilous is certainly entertaining, the film never quite reaches those same heights of delirious uncertainty again. Instead, the writing embraces too much chatter. Specifically, adversaries spend so much time explaining their motivations. Did we learn nothing from Syndrome about the perils of excessive monologuing? This flaw undercuts a climax that aims for subversive, but lands on overly convoluted. Adding insult to injury, one of Normal’s most fascinating figures, societal outsider Alex (Jess McLeod), rots in a jail cell for much of the second half.

In this weaker stretch of the picture, Wheatley and Kolstad still have the decency to deliver some gnarly kills. Those squeamish about stabbed eyeballs should perhaps skip Normal. Such heightened slayings certainly evoke both Wheatley’s earliest horror works and the British criminals of the director’s mid-career return to form Free Fire wailing over their gory wounds.

Clumsy dialogue (“physics, bitch!”), though, keeps undermining enjoyable action beats and grisly demises. Wheatley and cinematographer Armando Salas also struggle to properly film hand-to-hand skirmishes as the backdrop shifts to blizzard-drenched nighttime. Streamlining this universe’s various moral allegiances and elaborate schemes in favor of more visually coherent thrills would’ve greatly benefited Normal.

Still, even in its driest, most exposition-heavy moments, Odenkirk’s acting chops shine through. In portraying a do-gooder who can’t quite embrace apathy, the actor subtly and effectively differentiates his Normal character from the suburban bad ass dad of the Nobody films. His haunted facial expressions and reflective narration also evoke classic noir protagonists, an archetype he deftly embraces. Best of all, his physicality never loses sight of Ulysses as a normal guy, unaccustomed to using his fists to solve problems. Anytime he’s tackling people or aiming a weapon, Odenkirk quietly reinforces Ulysses’s inexperience. An everyman aura constantly wafts off the sheriff, no matter how wild things get.

As a cherry on top, this Mr. Show legend nails any dry punchline Kolstad’s script tosses him. A well-realized, quiet scene between Ulysses and Alex in a van perhaps illustrates this best. Here, the interim sheriff comforts the drunk twenty-something, offering them the kind of empathy they’ve needed for eons. If nothing else, this production is an endearing reminder of Odenkirk’s talent as a performer.

Still, Normal as a whole frustratingly struggles to live up to his work or its own effective first act. Part of the issue is one of villainy. There are antagonists, including Yakuza introduced in a prologue. However, most of Normal’s foes stay off-screen for much of the runtime. Those that don’t only present a serious threat for a single sequence. The lack of a Hans Gruber, Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont, or Emil Fouchon derails any attempts at building consistent tension.

Ultimately, the second act bites off more than it can chew. Simplicity can be vital, whether you’re making an action thriller feature or looking for a much-needed breather.

Normal chills its way into theaters everywhere on April 17th.

Normal Trailer: