A Scanner Darkly

"Your life and watching you live it is like a gag-reel of ineffective bodily functions."

2 Stars

I had such a hard time watching/finishing this movie. I started to look at it like a kid whose been told to eat all of their vegetables. "You're not leaving this table until that movie is finished!" Okay, okay!! Gulp.

Only after watching the special features did I understand what the movie was about. This is an adapted screenplay from Philip K. Dick written in 1977 during the paranoia crazed Nixon administration. He felt no one is safe from surveillance and in the future it can only get worse. An undercover cop (Keanu Reeves) becomes involved with a dangerous new drug, and begins to loose his own identity and his mind.
Dick's question was can an undercover cop become so whacked out that he could sting, and bust himself?

I discovered all of this after watching the movie. Too bad. That would have made it more interesting for me watch. But the dialogue was so ssssllllooooow-ah.
So many pauses, and hardly any voice inflections. Mono and dry, not to mention confusing.

No doubt visually it is stunning. But after this and Waking Life (which I didn't get 10 minutes into before turning it off), I am always going to equate this style with the words slow and tedious.

Am I excused?