After yesterday’s action packed, mostly multimillion dollar blockbusterfest I thought I would try and find a nice little independent film to view for the day. After a long search, one title caught my eye and as a result…
Film Number 7 – Special
This 2006 indie almost never saw the light of day , not getting a theatrical release until 2008 and then I think it probably past every one by. This is no surprise and you can see why it is not a widely known film, it is a small film with little content and that is not necessarily a bad thing. The film is about a lonely man (played with great care by Michael Rapaport) who takes part in a medical test for a new drug. The experimental medication starts to effect his psyche and he begins to think he possesses superpowers. He floats, walks through walls and teleports, or course this is all in his mind and from everyone else’s viewpoint he is standing still, running into walls and hurting himself.
The film has a moody tone; the lighting, music and setting are all somber and tragic enhancing the Rapaport’s tragic state. It is the classic hopeless character that we’ve seen in recent films like Ghost Town and Stranger Than Fiction but the difference is that Special always feels firmly planted in reality. The writing is tame but engaging and the pacing does plod along at times, it takes that wonderful indie/ art house approach of taking five minutes to show what is essentially thirty seconds of action or playing out scenes far longer than they really need to be. This is probably the films problem, running at about eighty minutes there is really only about 50 minutes of material here. You get the feeling that this would have killed as a part of an anthology film or that if someone spent a bit more time with the world they could have expanded it slightly further. To the films credit it never gets boring but it does come rather close.
A very interesting take on the superhero genre, the supporting cast does a decent job but Rapaport carries the film and makes the most out of his delusional character. He creates a make shift superhero uniform that looks like a hazmat suit and begins to try and stop crimes, eventually the corporation who make the drug try to stop him taking the pills and this is where the story goes. On the whole the film doesn’t really extend further then its premise but it is a very original and entertaining story that is worth a watch.
This one gets 6 and a half out of ten.
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