Film

Deflating both the superhero genre and predatory big pharma presents abundant comic possibilities, so directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore could’ve gone for broad yuks in their ultra-low-budget feature debut. No such luck: Barring a few fleeting chuckles, Special is an inexplicable downer that favors pathos over satire.

The film centers on LAPD parking-enforcement mook Les (Rapaport), whose participation in a drug study for the antidepressant specioprin hydrochloride (trade name Special) results in delusions of superpowerdom and crime-fighting acumen. He even conjures a pair of archenemies—Paul Blackthorne and Ian Bohen as the substance’s amoral developers—and, briefly, a plucky sidekick (Peck). Things turn sour fast, though, and Les is forced to detox under the care of a foxy grocery clerk (Alexandra Holden) he was previously too shy to ask out; in the process, he determines that everyday life requires each of us to be superheroes of a sort.

Groan. Haberman and Passmore effectively capture the claustrophobic ambivalence of Les’s state of mind (grainy 16mm film stock helps), and sweet, goofy Rapaport fights for every scrap of his character’s wounded decency. But simplistic moralizing played this straight is a hard pill to swallow—particularly when it’s coated in oppressive, masochistic self-righteousness.