Film Reviews

Special

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Jack Kehler
• Details: US / 95mins (16).

Les Franken (Rapaport) leads a boring life as a meter maid and, to try something different for once, enrols in a drug study for an experimental anti-depressant 'Special', designed to eliminate self-doubt. Told that there were no side effects, Les nonetheless begins to believe that he's a superhero, with super powers like telepathy, levitation and teleportation. Feeling good that he finally has found his true calling in life, Les quits his job and takes to the streets fighting crime. Saddled with a tiny budget, first-timers Haberman and Passmore deliver a top notch offbeat comedy that might have you in stitches one moment and cringing the next. Cleverly blurring the lines between what might be real and what might just all be in Les's unravelling mind, the directors prove that they are the new talented kids on the block and it gets the juices flowing when you think about what they could do with a bigger budget. Rapaport shows everyone that he is wasted on TV, as he delivers some of the campest lines (deliberately written by the way) committed to celluloid with utmost sincerity (and, when needed, poignancy), in what was a difficult role to play straight.

Review by Gavin Burke