Special
Magnet Releasing | Release Date: November 21, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
3
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth 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. Read full review
80
Film ThreatEric Campos
This is a weird little movie, and it's an interesting trip accompanying Dick Ritchie on his transformation. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubScott 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. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyAdam 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. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAaron 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." Read full review
50
The New York TimesNathan Lee
Either way, it doesn’t quite go far enough as psychological study or cultural commentary. Read full review
38
New York PostLou 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. Read full review
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