"Normal" - Weatherley With You

Ulysses (Bob Odenkirk) is the interim sheriff of tiny, snowy Minnesota town "Normal", after the previous Gunderson died. Holding the place down until the election, Ulysses only expects to be here for a couple of months. But when the bank is robbed during a a snowstorm, Ulysses twigs that there is a lot more going on here than meets the eye...

(London.net)
I was on the fence for the first 30 minutes. The film has a bloody rough start ("Hey, it's me, your husband, Ulysses...") and I was unsure what it was aiming for, and why Ben Wheatley (a rather distinctive director, the voice of such oddball fare as "Down Terrace" wherein a crime family are portrayed as petty, bickering, working class British shitbags in a terraced house; and the absolutely jaw-droppingly ominous and terrifying "Kill List", as well as quirky serial killer romcom "Sightseers"; the elongated gunfight and bloody good time "Free Fire" and psychadeic nutball time "A Field in England") was selected for this rather ordinary (hah) action movie. Sure it had some quirks, like the paint-dripping moose and the mayor (Henry Winkler, rather good in this), but you're waiting for the penny to drop, and the odd one liners and humour feels out of place.
Once the first of several twists at the bank kick in, the film finds its groove, and the script (written by Derek Kolstad) feels less like a knock off of "Nobody" or "John Wick" and more like something Wheatley would have written himself: characters fall down, miss, murder each other with household objects (a yarn shop is particularly fun) and has a sense of bloody mischief to it all. Much like "Nobody 2", it's an outsider's perspective on Americana, the trappings of it all and a pisstake on the classic American action movie: the diner uses an old school record jukebox and is adorned with a comic number of guns; the ice cream parlour has the 50s style hats and chairs; and Fonzie is the Mayor! Only here, Wheatley makes it all come together in service of an out and out ridiculous comedy, after a particularly funny bloody death at the bank. By the time of its excellent finale (a massacre set to "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman", a choice so bizarre that it has to have been a send-up of the newer trend of pop-music massacres, and it being Dr Hook makes it tailor made for my tastes), caused by a piece of comedic slapstick genius, I was absolutely engaged, and it had surpassed its ludicrous nonsense story of Yakuza money laundering in the Mid-West to become a fun litte afternoon movie, a continuation of Odenkirk's little action movie crusade, and had risen above some of the clunkier dialogue on display. Plus, great to see some non-binary representation in the form of Jess McLeod's deputy.