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Special

EMAILPRINTMagnet Releasing (Magnolia Pictures)

Special reviews
57
8.0 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 7 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 3 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama

Written by: Hal Haberman
Jeremy Passmore

Directed by: Hal Haberman
Jeremy Passmore

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 21, 2008
DVD: March 31, 2009

Running Time: 81 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for language, some violence and brief drug use

Starring Michael Rapaport, Ian Bohen, Alexandra Holden, Andrew Leeds, Ian McConnel, and Josh Peck

Les Franken is a kind-hearted and soft-spoken man who loves reading comic books. He’s completely average and virtually invisible. However, everything changes for Les the day he is accepted into an experimental drug study for a new and exciting anti-depressant, Specioprin Hydrochloride. As Les begins to take the drugs an unexpected side effect occurs – he begins to develop special powers. Faced with the dilemma of how best to utilize his new “powers,” the answer seems obvious to Les. He puts together a homemade superhero suit and hits the streets to fight crime and protect the world from the forces of evil. Surveillance videos bring him to the attention of the businessmen developing the drug. Worried about the bad publicity Les is bringing to their new anti-depressant, they attempt to put an end to his superhero antics before too much damage is done. (Magnolia Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

80

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The movie loses its way toward the end, shifting from wry black comedy to slightly overdone pathos. But there's plenty here to appreciate, making the title perfectly apt.

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80

Film Threat Eric Campos

This is a weird little movie, and it's an interesting trip accompanying Dick Ritchie on his transformation.

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75

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Special recalls a minor-key "Donnie Darko," but its vision is much more limited, and it sinks into Indiewood cliché whenever it reaches for profundity.

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58

Entertainment Weekly Adam Markovitz

Thanks to Rapaport's brio in embracing the hero's drug-induced delusions, the movie is less a failure than a noble experiment gone awry.

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50

Village Voice Aaron Hillis

All that's left then is a miserablist analogue to M. Night Shyamalan's "Unbreakable," a sad portrait of paranoid delusion with wipe-out stunts played for the comic wincing of "Jackass."

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50

The New York Times Nathan Lee

Either way, it doesn’t quite go far enough as psychological study or cultural commentary.

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38

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Rappaport does a yeoman's job in this tonally confused oddity. The wonder is that Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore's Special is making it off the festival circuit and into theaters at all, however briefly.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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