Special

Here's a case of wasted potential. Special had a lot of really good things going for it. The concept was pretty ingenius, a boring every man wishes he had super powers and he starts taking medication that gives them to him, or does it? It features one of the best lead performances from Michael Rappaport and visually it's blazing some trails with mostly hand held sparsely lit location shooting. It's just that the movie itself isn't any good.

Now this may be considered a spoiler, but not really, because the movie spoils itself pretty early on, within about 10 mins by my count. I thought I was in for a ride of "is he or isn't he super powered?" but with in about 5 mins of him thinking he has super powers, we are indeed told that he does not and that he just thinks he does.
So the entire hook of the movie is taken out from under us and we still have 80 or so minutes to go. There's an uninteresting bit about a love interest that doesn't go anywhere and an entertaining pair of best friends. Even some of the fight sequences are pretty well done (especially the one where he convinces himself he turned his foes invisible). It just felt like the entire reason I should care about the movie or be interested in it was deflated pretty early on. So now that its confirmed he just nuts, what are we supposed to do for 80 mins? Watch this guy be insane?
Its not fun watching someone be insane, but its at least compelling to wonder whether or not he really is. By eliminating that, you're just watching this hopeless guy become more hopeless and watching him spiral down further into incoherence, alienating his friends and getting himself in trouble with the law in a couple major ways. While Rappaport sells it and sells it well, what he's really selling us a pretty empty premise based on a flimsy concept.