By the time the credits roll on Normal, that jovial man sitting next to me wanted to tell me which movies this reminded him of, and I already knew the new answers. Hot Fuzz. Fargo. John Wick. But even with all the familiar movie ingredients, this explosive stew comes together rather well, with its darkly comedic charm of dumping guns, explosives, and the yakuza into small-town Minnesota.

Bob Odenkirk proves to have a comfort level in the action genre when portraying Sheriff Ulysses. Acting as the interim sheriff of Normal, Minnesota, he’s hoping for an easy-going job in a small town to clear his head and maybe rekindle his failing marriage. For a few days, it seems to be just what the doctor ordered as he handles traffic disputes and complaints over store inventory. But there’s clearly something amiss with the mysterious death of the previous mayor, the absurd amount of money raised for the community, and a general off-ness to how the population is both chipper and vague. There’s too much Minnesota Nice for this to be a simple town, and, sure enough, something sinister lurks under the snowy surface and the eccentric mayor played by Henry Winkler.

Of course, with a script written by Derek Kolstad (Nobody, Nobody 2), there is plenty of action, and one can expect plenty to be telegraphed in the first act. Thankfully, the film embraces the uncertainty of a situation that keeps getting messier. The mantra of Ulysses throughout is that calm cleans messy. And, wow, what a marvelous mess it becomes for how the best laid plans for corruption and heroism explode. Scenes of banks riddled with bullets, streets blowing up with dynamite, and a yarn store with knitting needle stabbings are a lot more exciting when you don’t know where those scenes will hit and with whom to root for.

Director Ben Wheatley also finds moments that are humorous beyond the slapstick of exploding bodies and chaotic fights, bringing some real charm to what could’ve been a tiresomely apathetic protagonist that switches gears when in the crosshairs. There are some fun quirks of the town, with a chipper deputy, Mike (Billy MacLellan), wanting to look cool, and the eager deputy Blaine (Ryan Allen) eager to be the new sheriff. But I think what made me love Odenkirk so much in this film was that his desires were more within reach. His character in Nobody and Nobody 2 had this constant air of feeling unworthy of manhood, an aspect that blurs when the brutality coats the screen. But Ulysses is a fairly quiet guy just seeking some comfort and is easygoing enough to make small talk with everybody, from bartenders to bank robbers. He takes life one day at a time and, when cornered by crooked cops and vicious gangsters, fights his way out one shootout at a time, making up his survival as he goes, rather than building to an elaborate setpiece.

For what could’ve been another ho-hum John Wick clone, Normal is baked with enough Midwest spice to be something more refreshing with its bombastic violence. There’s a lot that gets tossed at the screen with so many characters and twists that some either peter out or get lost in the shuffle. But it’s that level of unpredictability that keeps the film humming along with gleeful grit and colorful enough characters, more amusing for their tongue-in-cheek personalities than for how well they explode into chunks. There’s just as much effort put into the absurdity of the scenario as there is into the high body count, with Odenkirk’s warm and weary nature nestling nicely. It was also a relief to see a Minnesota-set movie that didn’t fall back on exaggerated accents for its comedy, don’t ya know. Refusing to take that easy route prevents this film from being as easily pinned down as Hot Fuzz with a Fargo flavor, making the movie more its own original hotdish of Odenkirk action-comedy.

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