Special Movie Poster
To tell you the truth, I sort of expected more of this film. When I watched the trailer I thought I sort of knew the direction in which they will take this movie, but I was wrong. Then again, I could probably say the same about 99% of movies in general. Movies with awesome trailers usually turn out crappy. Ones with crappy trailers usually turn out good.
Here is the thing – to me Special sort of lacks direction. It goes back and forward between dark comedy, and dramatic pathos never really picking one over the other. It really tries to be profound, but at the same time fails to treat itself seriously half of the time. And when it tries to be serious, it often crosses over into kitsch and cliche. As a result, the message is sort of muddled and doesn’t come across clearly. I actually had to think about it a little, but I believe that if you break it down, Special is a movie about one man’s journey to find empowerment and self worth.
We start the movie by meeting a shy, lonely, mild mannered guy who works as a parking maid, lives alone and spends most of his free time reading comic books or hanging out in a comic book store. He is the type of perfectly average, non distinct person that can get lost in the crowd. People barely notice him, and when they do, they proceed to walk all over him. Here is the kitschy part that I mentioned – this dude’s name is Less. It’s jarring, even to me – they might as well have named him Joe Everyman.
Anyway, Less (seriously, I cringed every time I heard his name cause I knew they picked it on purpose) decides to participate in an experimental clinical trial. He starts taking this newly developed drug that is supposed to help him to overcome the feelings of self doubt. Unfortunately the pills have a unforeseen side effect which cause him to experience mild hallucinations and delusions.
Less thinks the drug gave him superpowers. He can levitate, read minds, walk through walls and even teleport. Of course we, the viewers and everyone around him know he is just having a schizoid episode. Less however truly believes he was blessed with superhuman powers (after all the pills are supposed to reduce self doubt) and so he decides to become a superhero.
Initially he is mildly successful in stopping an armed robbery in a convenience store, and catching a thief who stole some lady’s purse on the street. But as the time progresses we sort of see his condition deteriorating and spinning out of control.
I sort of wished they played with this delusional super hero condition a little more and have Less actually become a moderately effective crime fighter. When I watched the trailer I thought that this is going to be the “meat” of the movie. Have a guy who is clearly losing his mind, but his confused condition gives him enough courage and reckless abandon to be terribly effective. Then you could present viewers with an intriguing dilemma – should Less continue taking the drug and work as a vigilante actually making a difference, with his sanity slipping away and his physical condition deteriorating due to the severe beat downs and insane stunts he performs? Or should he stop, and go back to being nobody?
But that’s not where the movie took the story. Instead they went on a weird tangent introducing couple of evil, ruthless business men who founded the study. They try to bribe, and then threaten Less into keeping quiet about the side effects – and they are not afraid to use force to get their message across. Sadly their efforts have a directly opposite effect, as our delusional hero becomes paranoid and decides that they are some sort of mysterious “men in black” who are out to get him.
Frankly, I don’t get their role in this movie. I believe it could do without them. In fact, their presence as clear antagonists takes attention out of Less’ condition. Instead of a steady downward spiral toward insanity, they sort of appear on the scene and push the poor guy into an abyss of paranoia. Are they supposed to represent everything that is wrong with the pharmaceutical industry? Is that the point they were trying to make here? I don’t know.
There is surprising amount of gags and situational humor in this movie. Most of the time Less’ hallucinations and delusions are played for laughs. And then every once in a while it switches gears and tries to be profound which doesn’t really work. Some movies can pull that off – they make you laugh one minute, and then make you gasp in anticipation or cry the next. Special is not one of them. It just feels confused and directionless.
The ending, especially seems needlessly over dramatic and unnecessary. I can see what they were going there. That scene is about Less regaining his dignity and his self worth. He faces his rich and powerful nemesis as triumphs over him via sheer force of will – without help from his wonder drug. But the way it is played out is just just a desperate attempt to squeeze out emotional reaction from the viewer. Sadly, for me it failed because at that point I completely lost the connection to Less – I could no longer figure out what he was thinking and where he was going next. He is supposed to be off the drug, but his behavior seems irrational. Even more so, now that he is allegedly in full control of his mental faculties. His complete abandon, and lack of self preservation instinct is baffling. So the battle of wills between the homicidal businessman and clearly suicidal Less spins out of proportion into some sort of mock “passion” scene. He responds to escalating malice and brutality by turning the other cheek. Which hardly makes sense in the light of everything else that has happened in the movie.
Lets back up – the movie starts with a passive Less dreaming about being a hero. He then takes control of his life and becomes proactive – he become a hero (at least in his own mind). Then he perseveres over his nemesis by becoming passive again?
Perhaps the movie tries to hint that one can’t be a proactive vigilante hero in our society – and that true heroism is measured by perseverance and self determination in face of overwhelming adversity. Maybe… Still, when I was watching the final scene I was almost certain Less is going to die in a classic indy tradition of snatching a crushing defeat out of the jaws of overwhelming victory.
I complained a lot in this post, but the movie is not all bad. The acting is very decent. The cast is small, and they sort of captured the right mix of talent. There are no jarring performances and Rapaport does a very good job portraying this rather complex character. He performs consistently and his delivery works whether he is doing comic relief, or serious drama.
The idea is intriguing, and it tries to be ambitious. But it seems to be one of these movies that tries to be too many things at once. It tries to deconstruct the superhero mythos, but it’s treatment of the subject is a bit shallow. It tries to show a man’s decent towards insanity, but it doesn’t probe into Less’ psyche deeply enough. It tries to include a romantic subplot, but it leaves it mostly unresolved. It tries to tell a story about empowerment but it sort of misses the mark. It tries to say something about the way power and wealth wraps human morality (I think) but it’s sort of lost in the noise. It serves all of it with a large of helping of rather wry and dark humor. All these things could fit in one movie – but Special does not do a very good job of tying these things together into a compelling story.
It is not a great movie – but it get credit for trying to be smart, funny and profound. The fact it misses the mark by a bit is irrelevant. There are many movies that don’t even attempt any of that. So yeah, I’d say it is worth watching.
