Special Unit

I have always liked Christopher Titus stand up. I think his comedy is genius. Since I am familiar with his act and his attitude towards the differently abled I do understand his attempt to make a comedic film with a message. However, this movie just isn't funny. Period. Either it's the production values, script or some other contributing factor that makes the actors appear to be bad, B-movie actors. Reminiscent of the same caliber of acting found in Ed Woods "Plan 9 from Outer Space" bad. Maybe it was the difficult task of trying to make disabled characters funny. Don't misunderstand me. I am not objecting to the material because the portrayal of mentally and physically handicapped people. I am objecting because this particular movie doesn't manage to make this uncomfortable subject humorous. And maybe no one can. Whatever the reason the production was just embarrassingly awkward and third rate. Overall, Special Unit is like a student film produced by immature frat boys.

So I've been a fan of Titus since watching his shows and stand up, which are honed, finished products that have audience input that make them, when put to film, really good.

But what seems to happen to this film is that, with a low budget and possibly too little input, it's an okay film with funny moments rather than a coherent piece of filmmaking.

I think it really helps if you give characters a reason to exist. If I believe there is a story behind their behavior, it's a lot easier to understand their motivation. Other than a few moments, I couldn't understand why I'd want to care what happened to this group of people, and I really wanted to.

I Liked the jokes very much, but it felt off.

The Pros:

Like I said the comedy is funny, all the interactions between characters is comedy orientated and you can see that in every single scene. The actors were somewhat acting over the top which, to me, fitted the mood and story of the movie.

Overall, all human interactions and dialogs were comedy orientated and you could really see there were a lot of funny ideas, it is pretty cool to see a very funny man show us what he does best.

The Cons:

Like I said the comedy is really funny, BUT It did not feel like a movie, there were a couple of things that felt off. And in my opinion there were 2 major things causing this;

Environment sound:

The change from having only environment sound or only music or no background sound at all felt clunky. And at some moments the environment sound did not fit with the scene.

Music:

The timing of the music felt off. It feels awkward when you are laughing after a punchline and 2 sec later music starts, I stopped laughing each time because I expected something to happen and this would happen a lot. In some scenes the music would suddenly stop or begin to emphasise the spoken or physical comedy at weird timings, It felt clunky.

Maybe it would have helped if the music was thought of as the introduction, applause and laughter within a standup routine, put the music where you would 'expect' those 3 things to occur in the movie and you would probably be on par with the audience laughing and each scene with music would not feel off and clunky.

The jokes are very funny, fantastic ideas, but to me the environment sound and the timing of the music stagnated the flow and feel of the jokes and the movie.

Therefore a rating of 5.

I stumbled upon the 2017 movie "Special Unit" by random luck. I picked it up and it seemed like a comedy that could be really good, so of course I sat down to watch the movie.

While "Special Unit" was watchable, it wasn't really a particularly outstanding, memorable or overly funny comedy from writer and director Christopher Titus. Sure, the movie definitely had its moments and there were some funny scenes. But this is not the type of comedy that will have you toppled over laughing so hard you'll have tears streaking down your cheeks.

The story was adequate although it seemed fairly out there at times, but in overall it was working out well enough for what it turned out to be.

As for the acting, well I will say that the actors and actresses in the movie actually performed quite well, taking into consideration the limitations placed on them from the script and storyline.

"Special Unit" is the type of comedy that you will watch once, if you don't get offended by the comedic jabs at disabilities throughout the movie and the portrayal of disabled people, but it is hardly a movie that you will watch more than once.

I feel that "Special Unit" ended up as a mediocre comedy. It did entertain adequately, but it just had too many shortcomings for it to be an outstanding movie, and it just never managed to move out of the mediocre sandbox. I am rating "Special Unit" five out of ten stars. It is a feel-good movie, but it was just lacking on the comedy parts.

Definitely not leaving any spoilers behind because I'd rather have people watch this for themselves. I just have to say that since we're not going to get to see any Al Bundy's down humor anymore or humor like this movie provides. On account of the fact that our delicate thin-skinned little Snowflake culture we've cultivated will no longer allow us to have a laugh. I am considered disabled. I feel that every once in a while we have to enjoy a little bit of dark humor or even humor that is completely inappropriate. This whole movie is completely inappropriate. But, it's intended to be. We just need to be able to laugh at ourselves more. If we can't learn to do that then we're already more disabled than we think.