rooprect Aside from the time I spilled hot coffee on my lap during "Fiddler on the Roof", I'd say this is one of the most powerful experiences I've had while watching a movie.This quirky gem of a film is 25% comedy, 25% tragedy, 25% feel-good, 25% depressing, and 100% awesome. Starting off with the most preposterous plot (i.e., a lonely metermaid guy develops special abilities and fights crime while running from strange men in suits), it quickly develops into much more than meets the eye. It's essentially the story of the lone, forgotten individual who's trying to make a difference in this world. In that respect, it can be a sad film. But at the same time it can be funny, warm and deeply inspiring.Thanks largely to an absolutely brilliant performance by Michael Rapaport as the metermaid guy, this movie takes you on a crazy ride through every emotion you've ever had and some you haven't had yet. I laughed, felt sad, felt angry, felt the warm fuzzies, felt pity and felt empowered. I can't remember the last time I cared so much about a movie character. It's funny because I began watching this film not liking him very much (after all, who likes metermaids??), but quickly he became one of the most lovable misfits since "Amélie".Never have I seen the plight of the superhero so wonderfully presented and fleshed out in human terms. Whether we wear a cape or not, we're all trying to change the world in our own ways. You, yes you sitting there reading this, could be a superhero. This movie presents us with that idea, and (unlike Spiderman, Batman, Catwoman, etc) it does not slip into fantasy territory where we lose touch with our perspective. Instead it remains firmly rooted in reality and thus allows us to see ourselves in the hero's role. That's where this movie draws its power to affect us. It's the story of us all. Watch it and learn about yourself & the people around you.Other great, obscure movies that this reminded me of: a Michael Keaton film called "The Merry Gentleman" (2008), a must-see Korean movie called "The Foul King" (2000), and a powerful Australian flick called "Noise" (2007).

johnvile I'd recommend this film to anyone with a brain.I just got this movie from the pound shop on DVD. I'm ignoring the camera work at the beginning. It seems to want to be like a Docu-Movie or some such.. This style mellows a little and becomes more pallet-able, once the bad Piano player stops trying to impart empathy into the scenes.Really my only problem with this film is the style its shot in and the hackneyed sound track. If it wasn't for that I'd give it a ten because it really is a great film. Great story, great acting.Its on my must See List

MBunge Special is a film that remembers what super-heroes used to mean to people and isn't ashamed of it. Before they became big budget spectacles that make hundreds of millions of dollars, before they became sardonic and self-loathing vehicles for societal and psychological deconstruction, super-heroes were power fantasies for the young, the young at heart and for people who felt they were powerless in their own lives. They were about not liking or being satisfied with who you are and yearning to be something amazing. That kind of needful desire can be silly, sad and even inspiring. Special is that sort of film.Les (Michael Rapaport) is a lonely, awkward, quietly desperate meter maid whose only real friends are a couple of stoners (Josh Peck and Robert Baker) who own the local comic book store. Les decides to take part in a clinical trial, testing a new drug to ease crippling feelings of self-doubt. What the pills give Les are psychotic delusions that he has super-powers. So, he does what any socially awkward, grown up comic book fan would do to quench his thirst for validation…he quits his job, cobbles together a silver costume and starts patrolling the city as its newest protector.In real life, however, it's not that easy to find muggers or jewel thieves to heroically thrash, so Les' increasingly addled brain finds substitute targets. There also aren't any super-villains in the real world, though drug company executives afraid that Les' adverse reaction to their pills will ruin their chance to be rich manage to play the part in both Les' fantasies and his actual life. But as he becomes more deranged and more dangerous to himself and others, he must find a way to give up his hallucinations of heroism and find something truly heroic in ordinary, unexceptional Les.Special manages to take the idea of a crazy guy who thinks he's a super-hero and embraces every aspect of that concept. It's absurd, disturbing, touching and even ennobling. There's a humor to be had in someone who thinks he can run through walls and make things disappear with by waving his hands. There's something frightening about a person who acts out because he sees and hears things that aren't there. There's something poignant about a man who wants to hold on to his insanity because as terrible as it is, he still thinks it's better than his unhappy reality. And there's something uplifting about a timid and unsure man finding the strength he's always looked for by finally looking inside himself.Michael Rapaport gives a very fine performance in this movie. He's playing a character who lacks social skills in more ways than are simply convenient for the story. Les doesn't understand himself or how to interact with other people which Rapaport makes first pathetic and charming and then threatening when Les' personal inadequacies are fueled by pill-spawned psychosis. Josh Peck and Robert Baker are also pretty good in small roles as Les' stoner friends. Baker's character is roughly equal in age to Les but is a bit more emotionally capable and able to put some ironic distance between himself and his juvenile preoccupations. Peck's character is younger and gets caught up in the ridiculous thrill of super-heroing before crashing against the unsettling fact that the super-hero is a dangerous lunatic.Writer/directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore deserve a good bit of credit for their work as well. Special is a very low budget film and it looks it, but Haberman and Passmore manage to come up with quite a few ways to visually mine the comedy and the tragedy out their story. They cleverly blend Les' madness and his sanity in ways that illustrate the struggle going on inside his mind. This film also has dialog that is realistically funny and dramatic, never straying into pretension or melodrama. I also salute their ambition as filmmakers and their wisdom to not get carried away by it. I've seen a lot of 90 minute or 2 hour indy flicks that should have never been more than 15 minute film festival entries. Special is 81 minutes long and it's got enough plot, theme and characterization to fill that up. And while there are opportunities and had to be temptations to stretch the story out and try and make it a bigger deal than what it should be, Halberman and Passmore didn't go down that road.Special is one of those little movies that more people should see because a lot of them would enjoy it. If you spot this DVD on the shelf amidst the dreck, dregs and stuff you've already seen, give it a try.

zardoz-13 This above-average but anti-climactic low-budget indie psychodrama "Special (RX) Specioprin Hydrochloride" depicts the psychotic delusions that a shy young guy suffers from after he participates in clandestine drug testing program. "True Romance" star Michael Rapaport excels as deranged protagonist Les Franken, and Rapaport's performance testifies to his genius as an actor that he can forge a genuinely sympathetic character who could easily have been portrayed as a shallow lunatic. Unfortunately, freshman co-scenarists & directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore fail to develop their screenplay past its provocative premise. Happily, they shun the low road which would have made "Special" into a lame-brained, predicable comedy. Instead, they play everything extremely straight and narrow so this satirical character study of a pathetic man becomes a parable about paranoia. The subtlety with which they handle the action in the early stages makes "Special" appear promising, but the luster grows tarnished about an hour into this 81-minute epic.Les Franken is an anonymous meter cop for the Los Angeles Police Department. He writes parking citations during the day. Once he starts writing a ticket, he claims that he cannot stop the process. Nevertheless, when a woman gives him a sob story about her bankruptcy, Les breaks the rule and tears up the ticket. Later, Les' boss chews him out for having such a soft heart. Our modest but unassuming hero lives alone and has no friends other than two geeks who own a comic book store. Les worries that he is too old to be reading comic books, but these simple-minded sagas fuel his avid fantasies. It isn't long after he ingests the medication that its side effects kick in and his life takes some dramatic turns. While eating cereal on his sofa and watching television, Les levitates in the air. Mind you, he doesn't rise very high off the cushions, but he ascends high enough to blow his mind. Suddenly, Les imagines that the pills have unlocked his latent superhero powers. Actually, Dr. Dobson (Jack Kehler of "The Big Lebowski") explains that Les is on a new experimental antidepressant which "inhibits the brain chemical responsible for self-doubt." Initially, Haberman and Passmore let our hero imagine that he is a super hero who can leap off a desk and hover above the floor. Indeed, we—the audience—buy into Les' delusion because we see it from his perspective. At first, "Special" is a lot of fun because we want to believe what Les believes, but Haberman and Passmore evoke our suspicions that Les is not only fooling himself but us, too. The co-directors let Les get away with a couple of things amid all the other things that he doesn't get away with. When Les runs through a wall, he vanishes into the wall. Afterward, however, he reappears with bruises and blood stains on his head. Haberman and Passmore seem intent of confusing us about the reality and illusion of Les' delusions. Dr. Dobson wants to administer an antidote, but Les feels that it will divest him of his super powers.Believe it or not, Les insists he is indestructible. Our deluded protagonist starts cruising town in a goofy 'Special' super hero outfit with the name of the drug manufacturer on his back. Les looks like a mental patient on the loose. He tackles people in stores who he mistakes as shoplifters. These misguided stunts win him a segment on the local newscast. The scene where he tries to turn himself in at the LAPD is hilarious. Les thinks that he can read the minds of those people around him. Basically, everything that Les does backfires on him, except on two occasions. He saves a supermarket clerk from a gunman and recovers a woman's purse from a thief. Eventually, the financial backers of the pharmaceutical company that invented the medication, the Exiler Brothers, Jonas (Blackthorne) and Ted (Ian Bohen), try to kill him because his hallucinatory behavior will discredit them. Les calls them 'the suits' and they become his arch-enemies. At one point, they use their dark, sinister automobile as a battering ram to run over him not once but twice! The redeeming thing about "Special" is that there are probably people out there like Les who might imitate his behavior under similar circumstances. Sadly, "Special" emerges as a little less than special because Haberman and Passmore dream up subplots and then dispense with them. Happily, Haberman and Passmore never venture off into broad comedy. The possibility of a romance between Les and a supermarket cashier with her own problems fails to materialize. One wonders whether Haberman and Passmore realized that they were channeling a combo of the 1968 Cliff Robertson movie "Charly," based on the novel "Flowers for Algernon" as well as M. Night Shyamalan's "Unbreakable." Instead, Passmore has stated that the movie "Jackass" inspired him. Unmistakably, "Special" deconstructs the way the media and our culture affect certain types of impressionable individuals.