Film / Normal (2026)

1 Following

Normal is a 2026 American crime thriller directed by Ben Wheatley, written by Derek Kolstad, and starring Bob Odenkirk, Henry Winkler, and Lena Headey.

Ulysses (Odenkirk) is the temporary sheriff of the quiet town of Normal, Minnesota, filling in for his recently deceased predecessor until a permanent replacement is found. However, a local bank robbery puts Ulysses in the crosshairs of Normal's secret and incredibly dangerous criminal underworld. It turns out the town's name may be a bit of a misnomer...

Not to be confused with the 2003 drama of the same name.

Preview: Teaser Trailer, Official Trailer

Normal contains examples of:

• Affably Evil: Plenty of the corrupt cops and townspeople seem to get along with Ulysses in the first half as he settles into town and some stay inside and only provide passive support or make a move if he stumbles across them while the core of the conspiracy is out hunting him. In fact, most of the remaining ones get along alright with him once they form a truce with him to fool the Yakuza at the end, with Kenny the soda jerk (one of the less directly involved in going after him) even serving him a milkshake.
  • Deputies Blaine and Mike seem especially dismayed at being told to shoot their new boss to protect the money laundering scheme before trying to do it, with Mike also feeling proud when he thinks he has heroically saved his buddies from dynamite, and Blaine not having a grudge about his ear being shot off.
  • Even Moira, one of the most ruthless and unrepentant of the bunch, gives Ulysses a last drink while holding him at gunpoint, while the even less pleasant Mayor Pain is in awe of the local moose and repeatedly makes We Can Rule Together offers.
• Almighty Janitor:
  • James the mailman is probably the most competent fighter among the many Gun Nut townspeople.
  • The two security guards at the bank are representatives of the Yakuza boss bankrolling the town, making them the final authority on what goes (although it's downplayed a bit since they were sent there in disgrace).
• Artistic License – Law: The interim sheriff is a local law enforcement officer (most likely the chief deputy), who is officially sheriff until the new election is held after the current sheriff dies or resigns, and solely for the sake of the administrative continuity. There are no "substitute" sheriffs to hire and it would be illegal to even try doing so across state lines.
• Bait-and-Switch: Ulysses uses this when he first throws a flare at the group hunting him and then throws a stick of lit dynamite, as people initially assume the dynamite is another flare before it goes off.
• Black Guy Dies First: Downplayed. Deputy Blaine Anderson manages to make it through the end...albeit without one ear.
• Bloody Hilarious: The violence in the movie is mostly played for Black Comedy. A lot of people are blowing up in heavy blood fountains.
• Car Fu: Alex does this to the town doctor when they're fleeing in the Sheriff's Truck while the remaining townspeople are shooting at them.
• Chekhov's Armory:
  • A literal example with an extremely over-packed armoury, which even gets a lampshade early on.
  • The locker containing "old-school stump removers" in Maynard's hardware store. It turns out to be full of flares and dynamite, which Ulysses uses to great effect.
  • The nail Maynard uses as a toothpick. It is eventually used to stab him in the eye.
  • The loaded guns hung on the wall of Ernie's bar. One of them ends up killing the Oyabun...and the rest are used in the subsequent shootout that kills the rest of the Yakuza and nearly every townsperson inside.
  • The C4 seen in the evidence room. It doesn't actually get detonated, but is instead used as a fail-safe to prevent the town from killing Ulysses, as he makes clear if he goes, the Yakuza money gets blown up.
• Clueless Deputy: To put it nicely, Deputy Mike Nelson isn't the brightest. He acts hopelessly naive and overly excited (such as genuinely wanting to show off his cool new jacket to his new boss). He still is part of the conspiracy and eventually finds his death when he tries to extinguish the fuse of a stick of dynamite^note which, in fairness, he thought was disguised as a harmless flare mixed in and predictably blows up.
• Decapitated Army: Literally so, given the Yakuza boss' head is turned into pink mist. By the end of the story, all the top ringers of the corrupt town and all the Yakuza enforcers are dead. This leaves the town of Normal with a large pile of bodies to hide, but nobody to bark orders at the townsfolk. And earlier on, Ulysses manages to talk sense to the surviving members of the posse after him, since anyone with actual authority is already dead.
• Didn't Think This Through: After pocketing a bar of yakuza gold, one of the bank robbers admits he has no idea how to go about actually selling it.
• Dirty Cop: Practically everyone working in the titular town's police department save for Ulysses, the outsider, as they are all in in the town's secret and obeying to Mayor Kibner.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: Deputy Blaine Anderson is introduced giving donuts to both the other cops and the citizens visiting the police station.
• Enemy Mine: Pointed out aloud by Ulysses. After all, if the deputies tried to shoot him, then he and the bank robbers clearly have a common enemy.
• Evil Old Folks: Mayor Kibner, Mary Beth, and Dr. Ville are the only prominent townspeople significantly past middle age, and all three are among the most aggressive in trying to kill Ulysses.
• Eye Scream: As Ulysses fights Maynard, he grabs the nail Maynard has in his mouth and stabs the man in the eye with it, the nail subsequently being forced further into Maynard's head when Ulysses slams his head against a door.
• Fingore: In the prologue, the Yakuza boss gives the mooks who failed him a chance to redeem themselves and gives them a new job. Before that they have to prove their loyalty by cutting off a finger. Two of them go ahead with this, the last one gets killed by having his head cut off.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Ulysses ends up joining forces with would-be bank robbers Lori and Keith as the people who aren't currently shooting at him, even letting them take the town snowplough and leave with a gold brick.
• The Ghost: Ulysses' wife, Penny, is only ever mentioned in his stories and he periodically leaves messages on her voice mail. She becomes The Voice in the very final scene, finally picking Ulysses' call.
• Gun Nut: Everyone in the town is rather found of weapons as is revealed when everyone arms up to hunt down Ulysses, but special mention has to go to Ernie, the owner of the local restaurant whose grandfather started collecting weapons, all of them visible (and loaded) on the walls. Ironically, Ernie is one of the least prone to actually using his guns, mostly sitting things out until the climax.
• Hidden Depths: The Oyabun casually reveals he's a big fan of Friends, which is where he learned to speak English.
• Hide Your Children: Normal doesn't seem to have any children, with the 20-something Alex being the youngest person in town by a decade at least.
• Hollywood Density: One of the bank robbers casually carries a gold brick in his pocket then easily uses it as an Improvised Weapon despite the fact it should weigh nearly thirty pounds.
• Hope Spot:
  • Mike initially seems to have successfully put out the fuse on a lit stick of dynamite. He has just enough time to celebrate his heroism before it blows up and kills him.
  • The people of Normal seem to have convinced the Yakuza that the alarm was nothing to worry about and everything is, well, normal. Then a freak accident knocks one of Ernie's guns off the wall and it blows the Oyabun's head apart. Cue Blast Out.
• I Choose to Stay: A non-fantastical example. Having a clear getaway from the city in a middle of the blizzard, Ulysses wishes the bank robbers best of luck and sends them away in the only vehicle capable of braving the storm
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Keeping an antique shotgun loaded and cocked while mounted on the wall is not a smart idea. When the gun falls off its mount it discharges and kills the Yakuza Oyabun .
• Interrupted Suicide: Implied: when Ulysses first meets Alex face-to-face, they're alone in their car on the side of the road at night, drinking heavily with a loaded gun. He manages to talk them down and form a friendship.
• It's Personal: Ulysses' standard procedure as interim sheriff is to just wait out a few weeks until the actual sheriff is elected, collect the pay and move on. The townsfolk unfortunately decided to make it very personal for him, by putting a target on his back and on top of that, forcing him to choose between life and compromising whatever integrity he still has left. He fights them off mostly for purely personal reasons, rather than anything else.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Ulysses' first strike back is when he blows up the Mayor with a grenade launcher, although he notes after the explosion that he was aiming somewhere else. There are characters from the posse who remain covered in what's left of the Mayor until the morning of the next day
• Make It Look Like an Accident:
  • Gunderson was murdered by getting him first full of liquor, then soaked with water and covered in snow and left out - during a winter in Minnesota. When his body is found in the morning, it is ruled as an unfortunate accident, given that the sheriff was a known drinker.
  • A variant. The proposed solution to escape the Oyabun's wrath is pretend that Haru sent a false alarm after a car crashed into the bank on accident and that the yakuza's vault of illicit gold and goods is still untouched.
• Mayor Pain: Played with. It's established very early that Mayor Kibner is a rather self-centered and unsympathetic character with no one really liking him on a personal level. However, given that he is the one who organized the deal with the Yakuza and made the whole town worthy, he is tolerated by everyone as the ultimate authority figure. However, it's noticeable that no one seems to be upset when Ulysses blows him up.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Things go upside down once Ulysses and his men are called to a bank robbery. Despite his deputies trying it's best to prevent Ulysses from entering the bank, Ulysses and the bank robbers soon learn the town's secret: They are storing Yakuza gold in their treasury in exchange for a lot of money. The whole town then tries to murder Ulysses and the robbers.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: The local doctor helped cover up Gunderson's murder and is one of the mainstays of the mob of townspeople out to kill Ulysses.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Ulysses genuinely does not care that the townspeople are working with the Yakuza but he objects to them killing anyone who stands in their way. Once the murderous leaders of the conspiracy are dead, Ulysses easily makes a deal with their more reasonable subordinates.
• My Greatest Failure: Ulysses is going from job to job after something happened in his past. He reveals that he didn't believe a girl's story that her father was abusing her. When she snapped and he walked in on her holding a gun to her father's head, she shot her father before turning the gun on Ulysses; he was faster and shot her first This later turns out to be not quite the whole story; he shot the father himself and she is still alive. However, the fact that he didn't believe her still put a strain on his relationship with his wife and caused him to become disillusioned anyway.
• Non-Indicative Name: When Ulysses arrives in the town, Normal, Minnesota seems to live up to its name... until the bank robbery which reveals that anybody in the town is in league with the Yakuza. Even before that, Ulysses states that "Normal isn't normal" when investigating his predecessor's death.
• No Name Given: The Oyabun is unnamed, and the only named members of the Yakuza are Joe (who is presumably The Heavy of the Yakuza), Arata, and Haru.
• Off with His Head!: When one Yakuza mook tries to get out of cutting off his finger to make up for his failure, his boss decapitates him with a katana.
• One-Man Army: Ulysses holds his best against a whole town of armored inhabitants, being a trained police officer.
• Oral Fixation: Maynard likes to have a nail in his mouth like a cigarette or toothpick.
• Outlaw Couple: Lori and Keith, the bank robbers that drive through America in the hope of making money. However, having been Locked Out of the Loop in terms of the town's deal with the Yakuza and were expecting a simple monetary payoff, they turn out to be more innocent than the whole town. They team up with Ulysses to take down most of the townspeople, and the latter even lets them escape with a single gold brick and their dog.
• Police Are Useless: Invoked and subverted. Ulysses is a seemingly carefree cop who enjoys the provincialism of Normal and doesn't want to make trouble as he only is sheriff for a few weeks. The townspeople state that they especially wanted Ulysses for this job as he has the reputation of not caring. Unfortunately for them, Ulysses starts caring when he learns the truth and goes after them.
• Queer Establishing Moment: When Ulysses meets Alex, he initially assumes they're "Gunderson's daughter". They say they're not, and he amends his statement to "Gunderson's kid".
• Redemption Promotion: The various Recurring Extra corrupt deputies are useless and incompetent while they're all trying to kill Ulysses together, but they make an impressive showing when they're fighting it out with the Yakuza in the climax (although most to all of them still die).
• Resignations Not Accepted: The whole town is forced to work for the Yakuza in storing their gold and killing anyone who finds out their secret. Anyone who tries to leave the operation winds up killed, such as a random civilian and Ulysses's predescessor Sgt. Gunderson.
• Right Man in the Wrong Place: Ulysses was not supposed to be in Normal, Minnesota for long, merely serving as an interim sheriff until they find a permanent replacement. But in the short amount of time he spent in Normal, he managed to stumble upon a Yakuza smuggling operation which the whole town is part of, setting off a series of events that led to the whole Yakuza gang dying and freeing the town from their control.
• Robbing the Mob Bank: The poor bank robbers, Lori and Keith, aren't even aware that the Yakuza uses the treasury of the bank to store some of their gold.
• Shout-Out: Ulysses happens to be far away from his wife, whom he loves dearly and he wishes nothing more than return to her. Her name? Penny.
• Sinister Minister: One of the guys out on the streets trying to kill Ulysses has a clergy collar.
• Spotting the Thread: Ulysses realizes something is wrong when the townspeople explained that his predecessor Sgt. Gunderson died while trying to go ice fishing in his underwear, even showing him his fishing rod, Ulysses noting that nobody goes ice fishing with a fly fishing rod.
• Suspicious Spending: The town has less than 2,000 people but openly talks about raising almost 17 million for a renovation project, the mayor goes on cruises, and the sheriff has a McMansion and lots of rare whiskeys. It isn't too surprising Normal is a Town with a Dark Secret.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Befitting the director's penchant for Black Comedy, a lot of the violence in this movie could be described as "overkill".Especially when Ulysses and the bank robbers are cornered and they find the weapons that are stored there...followed by Ulysses blowing up Mayor Kibner with a grenade launcher, stating he didn't even know how to use it and saying that he was actually aiming for something else. He later also gets to kill a lot of the inhabitants using sticks of dynamite, some disguised as harmless flares.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Ulysses soon recognizes that something is off, especially when he comes across a big investment. He learn the secret sooner than he wants: The town is storing Yakuza gold in their bank vault in exchange for money and is protecting this secret from the US government. As soon as Ulysses learns the truth, everyone in the town tries to kill him.
• Trans Tribulations: Alex hints that their being queer caused some friction with Normal and particularly their father Gunderson. As he was the previous sheriff, he was sometimes at odds which side to fall on. It's played with in the fact that Gunderson eventually decided to support Alex wholeheartedly, even deciding to quit so they could both leave. However, because of Normal's deal with the Yakuza, no one was allowed to leave, so Moira killed Gunderson before he could, leading Ulysses to have to fill in.
• Ultimate Authority Mayor: Mayor Kibner seems to have unlimited power over the town, including being able to give direct commandos to the police, and there are no signs of him being restricted by a city council or anyone else in the town. This seems especially noteworthy as no one seems to even like Kibner. It turns out the reason he has this power is that he organised the deal with the Yakuza and for that is responsible for the wealth of everyone in the city, while also implying that he had some "negative nancys" who opposed the deal killed or coerced into compliance.
• Villain Opening Scene: We open with a Yakuza meeting in which the unnamed Oyabun chastises three subordinates for an unspecified failure, forcing them to commit Yubitsume. While two of them do so, the third fails and is beheaded by the Oyabun, before he forces the two to go to Normal.
• Yakuza: The movie starts in Japan and shows a Yakuza boss taunting three members who failed him, giving two of them the opportunity to prove themselves by traveling to the titular town. It turns out that Normal is storing some Yakuza gold in their bank. Once there is an alarm in the bank, the boss and his men travel to the town themselves to see if anything is wrong. The inhabitants and Ulysses at first convince them everything is fine, before they are accidentally killed.
• You Killed My Father: Moira, as she holds up Ulysses at gunpoint, confesses the true nature of Sgt. Gunderson's death: she was the one who killed him when he wanted to leave the Yakuza operation, burying him alive under the snow and making him freeze to death. But Alex, the Sergeant's daughter who was hiding in the prison cell, swiftly disarms Moira and furiously fills her with lead after finding this out.