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Grade: D+

Verdict: A painful tale made into a painful movie.

Details: Starring Steve Martin, Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Dern. Directed by David Atkins. Rated R for violence and sexual content. One hour, 35 minutes.

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Review: “Novocaine” is a numbing bit of film noir foolishness starring Steve Martin.

You have to give the man credit. While his contemporaries (Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, etc.) were mostly churning out one formula comedy after another, Martin chose to stretch himself in movies like “Pennies From Heaven,” “Roxanne” and “The Spanish Prisoner.”

This time, however, the stretch doesn't work. It's not Martin's fault. The script doesn't work. Neither does the direction.

Martin plays Dr. Frank Sangster, a well-off dentist with a well-ordered life. He's got a thriving practice. He lives in a lovely house. He's happily engaged to Jean (leggy Laura Dern). Then trouble walks in. Her name is Susan (Helena Bonham Carter). She's a punk seductress with a bad tooth and a worse drug habit.

Martin last played a dentist — quite memorably — in 1986's “Little Shop of Horrors.” So if you really want to see him with drill in hand, you may want to rent that.

As for “Novocaine,” it starts off pretty well. The cast is good (throw in Elias Koteas as Martin's deadbeat brother and Kevin Bacon in an unbilled cameo), and the picture seems to promise some quirky originality.

Alas, it gets more incoherent as it goes along. The plot, which should be as cutting as a James M. Caine tale, becomes muddled and unwieldy. The tone, which should be pitch-black perfect, is wobbly and confused. Sure, comedy and nastiness can coexist — look at “Mulholland Drive” or “The Man Who Wasn't There.” But “Novocaine” simply stumbles from one mood (or scene) to the next.

Maybe neophyte feature director David Atkins should have picked something less complicated his first time out. Maybe Martin should have looked more closely at the script. Maybe Carter needed a warm-up for “Fight Club 2,” should it ever happen (she really is good; all tattered aggression).

Then again, maybe “Novocaine” should have remained a what-if idea instead of an actual movie.

The regret isn't so much that we've wasted our time; it's that someone as terrific as Martin has wasted his.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, (none)

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