Normal

There's a moose in this movie. It just wanders in, a few different times, no explanation, no big deal, and every time it shows up I grinned. That's the kind of quirk you either roll with or you don't. I rolled with it.

Bob Odenkirk plays an interim sheriff in Normal, Minnesota, and for a good stretch of this thing he looks like a guy who'd lose a fistfight with a mailbox. Small town, people going about their day, nothing happening. Then all hell breaks loose and Odenkirk flips into fight mode and things get hairy in a hurry.

Henry Winkler in an action movie.

He's great at it. That's the whole engine of the movie: a seemingly hapless guy who turns out to have skills, and Odenkirk sells both halves of that. The bumbling and the competence. You buy him either way, which is harder than it looks.

And then there's the supporting bench. Henry Winkler in an action movie. Lena Headey in an action movie. I did not have that on my card and I'm glad somebody did. There's something genuinely fun about watching those two show up in this kind of picture, and it gives the whole thing a texture it wouldn't have had otherwise.

I watched it at home, solo, half expecting to be checking my phone by the twenty minute mark. Never happened. I was locked in, and I was still thinking about it the next day, which is more than I can say for most of what I put on the TV.

Would I watch it again? Yeah, no hesitation. Would I tell everybody I know to watch it? No. This is a recommend-to-specific-people movie. You know who you are, and if you're the type who hears "Bob Odenkirk, small town sheriff, recurring moose" and leans forward, you're one of them.

Go find it.