{"id":3045,"date":"2026-04-19T20:40:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T20:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=3045"},"modified":"2026-04-19T20:42:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T20:42:53","slug":"normal-movie-review-bob-odenkirk-blows-up-the-fonz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/19\/normal-movie-review-bob-odenkirk-blows-up-the-fonz\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNormal\u201d Movie Review: Bob Odenkirk Blows Up the Fonz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So any movie starring Bob Odenkirk is a cause for celebration and this new action\/comedy, Normal<\/em>, does not disappoint. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever laughed at so many people getting shot, stabbed, killed, maimed, or blown to smithereens\u2014including Henry Winkler, aka The Fonz from TV\u2019s Happy Days<\/em> sitcom of the Seventies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Winkler plays the mayor of Normal, Minnesota, a frosty-cold town in the middle of nowhere. Odenkirk plays Ulysses, an interim sheriff (\u201cLike a substitute teacher,\u201d he quips) who has taken the job after the unfortunate demise of the previous sheriff (Gunderson), who froze to death in his underwear in the snow, holding a fly-fishing rod and an augur. \u201cThat\u2019s funny,\u201d says Odenkirk. \u201cYou usually don\u2019t take a fly rod to go ice fishing.\u201d After a quiet buildup and introduction to the wacky\/charming town citizens all hell breaks loose. Since the movie debuted Friday I\u2019ll withhold more details so as to avoid spoilers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Odenkirk has many moments of great comic timing, typical for him. Since he\u2019s made the action\/comedies\u00a0Nobody<\/em>\u00a0(2021) and\u00a0Nobody2<\/em>\u00a0(2025) I\u2019ll note he\u2019s in familiar comic territory. Normal<\/em> is like the Coen Brothers\u2019\u00a0Fargo<\/em>\u00a0meets\u00a0Nobody<\/em>, kind of. It features zany plots involving Japanese Yakuza gangsters and Midwestern folksiness. As the action heats up it gets uber-violent, but you know it\u2019s all \u201cgood, clean fun\u201d: It\u2019s a silly movie and none of these deaths are real, nor are we supposed to think they are. When they\u2019re in an auto shop and someone gets squished when a car falls off its jacks I burst out laughing. There are several cliches that they satirize: Odenkirk is a disgraced sheriff, due to an unfortunate incident in his recent past. He\u2019s estranged from his wife, to whom he leaves phone messages, angling for redemption. The end is essentially comic, even if the body-count is astoundingly high. It\u2019s not as clever as Odenkirk\u2019s great character Jimmy McGill in Better Call Saul<\/em>, but that\u2019s a high bar to clear. It\u2019s funny and doesn\u2019t pretend to be more than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever laughed at so many people getting shot, stabbed, killed, maimed, or blown to smithereens\u2014including Henry Winkler, aka The Fonz from TV\u2019s Happy Days sitcom of the Seventies. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[422,420,419],"tags":[421],"class_list":["post-3045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure-comedies","category-bob-odenkirk-movies","category-movie-review-of-normal","tag-bob-odenkirks-normal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3049,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions\/3049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}