Imagine if Walter Hill directed Hot Fuzz and then added a whole helping of Tom & Jerry into it and you'll get Normal, the latest from the hard to pin down British auteur Ben Wheatley.

Initially, I was worried that Normal would be another late-middle-age power fantasy in the style of the Nobody films, which were also written by Normal scribe Derek Kolstad and star Bob Odenkirk. Luckily, that isn't the case here. Normal has no time for the same ugly vanity and stereotyping, instead opting for a much more streamlined approach to its narrative.

Like in the films of the aforementioned Walter Hill, Normal introduces sharply observed archetypes for just long enough before the mayhem begins. There's the corrupt mayor (Henry Winkler), a fussy deputy (Billy McLellan), the sultry bar owner (Lena Headey), and enough recognizable faces to serve as a weathered backdrop. The first 20 minutes is there to setup the playground, introducing us to a whole Chekov's arsenal in the process.

Odenkirk plays Ulysses, a burnt out cop looking for a nice and easy gig in a place he doesn't have to put in the effort. Normal, a town of a thousand or so people with nothing going for it otherwise, seems like the perfect fit. Until a random bank robbery reveals that underneath the mom and pop facade is something far more dangerous.

It's mostly an excuse for some gory fun without nuance or subtext to get in the way. Think of the entire town as a massive Rube Goldbergian device designed for killing, and you're on the right track. At 90 minutes in length, Normal ends the moment the bullets run out, right before anyone has time to start pointing out the gaping holes in the logic.

Happily, the action itself does not disappoint. Wheatley has already proven himself an excellent storyteller of violence with his underrated Free Fire, and he continues his streak of well-paced and executed bullet ballet in Normal. Realism flies right out the window from the very first instance, instead replaced by a John Woo-esque adherence to the rules of cool. Whatever looks the best is how physics works at any given moment.

In the same spirit, bullets only do as much or as little damage as the story needs them to. People can have their entire heads blown off by a single bullet, or they can survive entire blasts to the chest point blank if it leads to a better scene. If you can accept that sacrifice at the altar of fun, you're bound to have a good time.

Normal won't win any awards for originality or writing, and it won't reinvent the genre like The Furious. But it's well acted, hugely funny, and always entertaining. There's not much more you can ask from a film like this.