"Novocaine" is a dark comedy featuring one of our top comics, Steve Martin, in a role not as sinister as the one he played in David Mamet's marvelously written thriller "The Spanish Prisoner" nor as flat-out hilarious as the dentist in Frank Oz's "Little Shop of Horrors." He's somewhere between, first shown as a highly successful practitioner engaged to anal-compulsive hygienist Jean Noble (Laura Dern) with Lynne Thigpen as his no- nonsense but affectionate receptionist. He becomes the victim of a series of mishaps that ultimately finds him a suspect for murder, a dilemma he could have avoided had he not succumbed to the temptation in the form of an unstable, conniving woman whose eroticism charms him because Susan is the opposite of his compulsively neat and orderly fiancee.

Though David Atkins's film is overplotted, with the director juggling several conceits including sibling dysfunction. Susan has an incestuous thing going with her wastrel brother Duane (Scott Caan) while Dr. Sangster feels an obligation to care for his unsuccessful, envious, drug-and-drink addicted sib Harlan (Elias Koteas). "Novocaine" is frequently as giddy as a ride on nitrous--which does not come close to dulling the pain felt by the good doctor as his life takes on the decay for which rotting teeth provide an apt metaphor.

Czech-born photographer Vilko Filac peppers the narrative with x-ray shots of patients' teeth and entire heads, skeletal figures lurid enough to scare the kids at Halloween while a non-intrusive, effective score is provided by "Edward Scissorhands" musician Steve Bartek.

Atkins, whose script for "Arizona Dream" dealt with the loss of the American Dream, plays winningly with a similar theme this time around as well, highlighting a person who has it all and yet is vaguely dissatisfied and helps bring disaster upon himself when his brain transfers to a position below his waist.