Trailer:
“Not doing anything at all—well—that’s pretty much the same as doing evil.”
After Unbreakable made the scene, Indie superhero films pretty much vanished off the face of the earth until the 2006 Special. Now when I say indie, in this case I REALLY mean barely professional.
The film introduces Les Franken (Michael Rapaport), a person suffering from a combination of depression and a lack of confidence. Just when his life as a parking patroller couldn’t get any worse, along comes the company “Special” with a new pill that relieves the subject of self doubt. Les obviously thinks it sounds great and becomes a test subject.
The pill manages to give him confidence in the strangest way imaginable. By giving him superpowers. Or at least that is what Les thinks. In reality he is having a psychotic reaction to the pill causing him to only think he has powers. Supposedly the pill is supposed to give the user confidence but in Les case it backfires causing him to fall onto the fantasy of a comic book lover. Unwilling to believe his friends that his powers don’t exist, he suits up and gets ready to become a real hero.
One of the films greatest flaws is just the look of it. It has a very cheap feel as if shot by a novice film student. In other words, very overly grainy and dark. On top of that the acting is a mixed bag. Some of the actors are very talented no names while others need to go back to acting class again.
The real stand out performance comes from the lead character played by Michael Rapaport who does a tremendous job of selling this characters state of mind as both a self loathing loser and as a bat sh*t crazy crimefighter. Yet despite all this he still manages to make the lead likable. The other noteworthy actor is his best friend Joey, played by Josh Peck as his worry free comic book loving buddy.
The villains of the film start out reasonable as the owners of the company that are trying to keep Les’s negative case from going public and ruining their chance at a contract for mass production. Unfortunately they get increasingly ridiculous as the film progresses to the point where their actions become inconceivably stupid. They are truly forced villains that would have been better served in the backseat of the story.
Speaking of story, near the middle the film really starts to feel like it doesn’t have much of a direction besides showcasing the exploits of a crazy person, though how they portray his “powers” is great. Some of the scenes of hallucinations are genuinely funny and creative, particularly those telepathic scenes between Les and his doctor. These scenes are the ones that help keep the film afloat as it slowly sinks into increasing melodrama, building up to a rather unsatisfying conclusion.
The film is very short at only about an hour and fifteen minuets. Yet short as it is the ending still felt a little drug out and could have been a good ten minutes shorter to avoid the clumsy conclusion.
Where the film really triumphs in the end is within the creative and interesting concepts. Perhaps is was not executed to its fullest but it’s genuinely interesting with some likable characters and fun scenes. A perfect film this is not, but definitely worth the look.
FINAL RATING: 6/10- (60%)
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