Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly is less interested in telling a straightforward mystery than it is in making the viewer increasingly uncomfortable with every new nightmare scenario. The future is bleak, and the world is under constant government surveillance. Increased tensions and stoked fears lead to an outbreak in substance abuse. Keanu Reeves lives a relatively mundane life in suburbia. His two strung-out friends (played by the scene-chewing Robert Downey, Jr. and Rory Cochrane) are in a constant state of paranoia due to their drug abuse. It is revealed that Reeves remains close to these incompetent men because he is secretly an undercover cop investigating a drug ring. As the mystery unravels, Reeves finds it harder and harder to separate his dual identities. While Reeves battles his own addiction, reality itself becomes increasingly warped, leaving him questioning his own existence. This movie comes highly recommended for its amazing use of rotoscoping (a unique animated style that comes from hand-painting over every frame of live-action film) and its off the wall performances. It leaves the viewer questioning what kind of world we live in, where sometimes someone can be sacrificed without even knowing it.
The war on drugs has been lost, and when a reluctant undercover cop is ordered to spy on those he is closest to, the toll that the mission takes on his sanity is too great to comprehend in director Richard Linklater's rotoscoped take on Philip K. Dick's classic novel. With stratospheric concern over national security prompting paranoid government officials to begin spying on citizens, trust is a luxury and everyone is a suspected criminal until proven otherwise. Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is a narcotics officer who is issued an order to spy on his friends and report back to headquarters. In addition to being a cop, though, Arctor is also an addict. His drug of choice is a ubiquitous street drug called Substance D, a drug known well for producing split personalities in its users. Jason Buchanan, Rovi