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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Blistering performances.

The idea of someone having an adverse reaction to a drug and plotting a movie around that has not been done, at least not very often before. The plot was good, with several holes, but over all, it can be forgiven. The same can be said for the characters, Even the cliché brother duo 'villains' played their roles well enough that the cliché can be forgiven.What can't be forgiven, is the most obvious thing I noticed in this film. I have read reviews by other people who mention a movie having bad, or shaky filming, but most of the time I never notice. But this movie, the filming is so shaky its ridiculous. I felt like I was watching a high school made movie from that alone, not even enough credit for a college movie.I will try to avoid bashing this movie, because for the most part I didn't mind it. It was a decent time passer, but a few more things I have to mention are the music, and the ending, the 'comedy', and the subjective viewing of the movie. The movie has you see both sides of the scenario at times, seeing how his friends see what happens and how he sees it. But at times, it makes it confusing if not impossible to follow what is happening. **Spoiler** For example, the scene in the park where the brother is chasing him, he teleports behind him and punches him in the face. Honestly there is no explanation given for this or a few other things that happen, like him getting from his friends car to the top of a building in a split second. It was as if the people making this movie didn't know if they actually WANTED him to have powers or for it to be in his head. This movie is in no way shape or form a comedy. From the very bleak outlook of every situation and the dark and serious tones of most every scene, to the extremely poor choice of music even for a sad movie, this movie was nothing but depressing. Not a tragedy, i can't give it that much credit, just depressing to watch and listen to. And my last qualm on my mind is the ending. If you are going to make a movie like this, you need to have a good ending, with a lesson or a reason, or something that makes sense to the madness. You do NOT have the main character say what he says, then completely ruin what he just said, then just end it with no real closure in the slightest.. I would have rated it lower, but I really didn't hate it. It was a decent movie if you are looking for something a little different.

Terrible hand-held camera work with perhaps the worst lighting in any released movie, this unfocused and out of focus film is a prime example of why digital video is killing independent film-making. Basically a very bad college film without the production quality this film had a spark of creativity in its original concept which was never successfully executed. Perhaps it was the terrible direction, the rotten writing or the overwhelming bad camera and editing work, that makes the average viewer irritated and annoyed at having lost 90 minutes of their life for nothing in return. Everyone one involved in this film desperately needs to go back to film school and listen to their teachers for once.

This above-average but anti-climactic low-budget indie psychodrama "Special (RX) Specioprin Hydrochloride" depicts the psychotic delusions that a shy young guy suffers from after he participates in clandestine drug testing program. "True Romance" star Michael Rapaport excels as deranged protagonist Les Franken, and Rapaport's performance testifies to his genius as an actor that he can forge a genuinely sympathetic character who could easily have been portrayed as a shallow lunatic. Unfortunately, freshman co-scenarists & directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore fail to develop their screenplay past its provocative premise. Happily, they shun the low road which would have made "Special" into a lame-brained, predicable comedy. Instead, they play everything extremely straight and narrow so this satirical character study of a pathetic man becomes a parable about paranoia. The subtlety with which they handle the action in the early stages makes "Special" appear promising, but the luster grows tarnished about an hour into this 81-minute epic.Les Franken is an anonymous meter cop for the Los Angeles Police Department. He writes parking citations during the day. Once he starts writing a ticket, he claims that he cannot stop the process. Nevertheless, when a woman gives him a sob story about her bankruptcy, Les breaks the rule and tears up the ticket. Later, Les' boss chews him out for having such a soft heart. Our modest but unassuming hero lives alone and has no friends other than two geeks who own a comic book store. Les worries that he is too old to be reading comic books, but these simple-minded sagas fuel his avid fantasies. It isn't long after he ingests the medication that its side effects kick in and his life takes some dramatic turns. While eating cereal on his sofa and watching television, Les levitates in the air. Mind you, he doesn't rise very high off the cushions, but he ascends high enough to blow his mind. Suddenly, Les imagines that the pills have unlocked his latent superhero powers. Actually, Dr. Dobson (Jack Kehler of "The Big Lebowski") explains that Les is on a new experimental antidepressant which "inhibits the brain chemical responsible for self-doubt." Initially, Haberman and Passmore let our hero imagine that he is a super hero who can leap off a desk and hover above the floor. Indeed, we—the audience—buy into Les' delusion because we see it from his perspective. At first, "Special" is a lot of fun because we want to believe what Les believes, but Haberman and Passmore evoke our suspicions that Les is not only fooling himself but us, too. The co-directors let Les get away with a couple of things amid all the other things that he doesn't get away with. When Les runs through a wall, he vanishes into the wall. Afterward, however, he reappears with bruises and blood stains on his head. Haberman and Passmore seem intent of confusing us about the reality and illusion of Les' delusions. Dr. Dobson wants to administer an antidote, but Les feels that it will divest him of his super powers.Believe it or not, Les insists he is indestructible. Our deluded protagonist starts cruising town in a goofy 'Special' super hero outfit with the name of the drug manufacturer on his back. Les looks like a mental patient on the loose. He tackles people in stores who he mistakes as shoplifters. These misguided stunts win him a segment on the local newscast. The scene where he tries to turn himself in at the LAPD is hilarious. Les thinks that he can read the minds of those people around him. Basically, everything that Les does backfires on him, except on two occasions. He saves a supermarket clerk from a gunman and recovers a woman's purse from a thief. Eventually, the financial backers of the pharmaceutical company that invented the medication, the Exiler Brothers, Jonas (Blackthorne) and Ted (Ian Bohen), try to kill him because his hallucinatory behavior will discredit them. Les calls them 'the suits' and they become his arch-enemies. At one point, they use their dark, sinister automobile as a battering ram to run over him not once but twice! The redeeming thing about "Special" is that there are probably people out there like Les who might imitate his behavior under similar circumstances. Sadly, "Special" emerges as a little less than special because Haberman and Passmore dream up subplots and then dispense with them. Happily, Haberman and Passmore never venture off into broad comedy. The possibility of a romance between Les and a supermarket cashier with her own problems fails to materialize. One wonders whether Haberman and Passmore realized that they were channeling a combo of the 1968 Cliff Robertson movie "Charly," based on the novel "Flowers for Algernon" as well as M. Night Shyamalan's "Unbreakable." Instead, Passmore has stated that the movie "Jackass" inspired him. Unmistakably, "Special" deconstructs the way the media and our culture affect certain types of impressionable individuals.

I'd heard about "Special" for a couple of months before I'd seen it. Being a comic book geek, I had to check it out. Believe the hype, hey.It's certainly a dark film, sometimes moving and other times extremely funny ("Okay. Watch this-" SLAM!). The main character certainly takes his beatings, both physically and mentally; by the end of the film he's covered in a mass of black and blue bruises. By the time the film fades to the credits, he can barely walk. The film doesn't mince around the fact that the main character is delusional on account of the drugs he's given, and that only makes it more harrowing. As the film progresses, you're really not sure what's real and what's a hallucination, what was said and what wasn't. It's a downward spiral, and the film, while lightly optimistic, is very bleak.Michael Rappaport's always good, and he shines here as Les, particularly near the end in the 'bathroom' scenes and a moving scene that I won't spoil for any of the readers, but it comes unexpectedly. Really, the entire cast gives a remarkable performance, though. I swear, I'm seeing that kid from "Mean Creek" in more and more stuff; he's getting to be a great actor.Watching the film over again, you can really pick up on certain little things in the beginning; like the scene in the comic shop, Les' 'big reveal' to his two buddies. Look at his nose after he jumps back through the wall. Just various things like that are sprinkled everywhere throughout the film,This is a great film; if you can't buy it, download it. But watch it.