Touching on themes recognizable from Hancock and Miike’s Zebraman while adding plenty of its own originality, this alt-superhero movie is actually an exploration of the self-denying insanity that can be comics fandom.

That might seem like an overly cerebral way to open a movie review, but Special is less a popcorn movie than it is a drama of ideas and meditations about what it means to be a superhero. I’m not sure if that’s a knock or a compliment, but I do know that it made the film an interesting experience for me, although not always in the ways that I’d expected. Not content to be simply a superhero movie about superhero movies (per the aforementioned titles), Special attempts to go right to the heart of the matter: why do we, or should we, even care about superheroes in the first place? What makes them so, um, special? Is it their powers, sense of justice, or indomitable spirits—and, hey, look at that, two out of these three traits are, in principle, available to us normal Joes as well!

Sure, there’s a degree of action in Special, sometimes brutal, sometimes comedic, but the filmmakers have intentionally framed most of it as conceptual rather than visceral. That means that no matter how many times we see star Michael Rapaport do things like leap off a building or deliver a beat-down to some thugs, it’s that framework that ups the moment from a simple pinprick of adrenaline (don’t expect spectacular set pieces) to something more. I don’t want to spoil Special’s central storyline for those who haven’t seen it, but let’s just say that subjectivity plays a major role. In fact, writer-directors Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore pretty much do a flawless job of playing with reality even if some of their maneuvers are a bit obvious; by alternating the point-of-view between Rapaport and the other characters, the audience is treated to not only a part-scathing, part-humorous discourse on pop culture à la Kevin Smith (i.e., are you a moron if you think all force fields must be invisible?), but also to a somewhat disorienting deconstruction of its own expectations regarding escapist fantasy and perhaps art in general (cf. The Science of Sleep).

Disorienting, that is, if you go in expecting a conventional, or even semi-conventional, superhero flick on an indie budget. Instead, it might make more sense to think of Special as the kind of superhero yarn that Raymond Carver might have written. It’s about a mind-bogglingly normal guy with the meaning-fraught name of Les Franken.

With a day job in parking enforcement, Franken becomes a guinea pig in a clinical trial for a drug that has startling side effects. At every step of the way the film hammers home his normalcy and relative insignificance in the world (e.g., a shot of his puny metermaid-mobile lingers while the narration tells us how content Franken is with his life). Indeed, his normalcy is so extreme as to be abnormal.

Enter the fandom theme. As an avid comics reader whose best (and apparently only) friends run the local shop, Franken predictably takes vicarious pleasure through fantasies of power and meaning while denying himself any of these goodies in real life: in a transparent sexual metaphor, he apparently lacks the courage to approach women until after he gains his (nudge, nudge) powers. Thus bordering on cliché, the film nonetheless keeps us engaged by creatively skewering/elaborating on the premise of Unbreakable—what happens when an ordinary guy starts exploring his newfound abilities, and what sort of missions does he then choose for himself? Of course Shymalan’s film also featured a comics fandom element (memo to line producers of such films: find better stand-ins for pro comic art), but the more important parallel might concern how in the end both scripts left me wanting a little more.

There will be many who disagree with this assessment, citing Special’s artful melancholy and terming it a moving character study. Well, for me, it does have those ingredients, but only in fits and starts. Other elements, such as a romantic subplot that I found way too contrived and precious, actually serve to undercut the dramatic power—it’s as if the filmmakers, savvy as they are, are not aware that they’ve exchanged one set of romantic fantasies (the costumed do-gooder) for another (the “heroism of the everyday”).

Still, for indie-minded filmgoers who don’t look down their noses at genre, Special will probably represent a refreshing and original time spent at the movies. Real (meaning unironic) superhero fans, however, may not like the mirror that’s turned on them, I’m not sure. I think everyone, though, will enjoy seeing Rapaport, who’s always been a gifted actor, return full-force to the impressive work of his early career. His voice-over, capturing his character’s humanity even as it hints at incipient madness, strongly recalls DeNiro’s in Taxi Driver. Of course Scorsese’s film provided a much darker version of what is essentially the same “moral loner”-fantasy: what to do in a world that’s not really sure it wants heroes until one happens to come along.