I am a fan of Richard Linklater. I love Slackers and Dazed and Confused. School of Rock is a great deal of fun. I’ve never read anything by Phillip K. Dick but I’ve dug some cinematic adaptations of his work such as Blade Runner and Minority Report. A Richard Linklater adaptation of a Phillip K. Dick story should be right up my alley.

And it is. When A Scanner Darkly came out in 2006 I was excited by it. Especially since it starred Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey, Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder – all actors I quite enjoy.

But I didn’t watch it in the theater. I made a copy of it from the library or a friend. Or maybe I taped it off the TV. Anyway, I’ve had a copy of it in my house for over a decade. Still, I only just now watched it.

I don’t know why exactly. Like I say it should be right up my alley. I think I even started it once or twice, but never got very far. Part of the problem is the animation style. It uses a technique called interpolated rotoscope which is where they shoot it live action, using real actors on real sets and animators trace over the footage frame by frame. The results are this weird mix of realistic with a wobbly psychedelia.

I don’t like it. My mind can’t seem to process it correctly. Like it thinks it is real, but then the wobbly animation throw it off and I don’t know how to comprehend what is happening. Or something. I find it difficult to watch.

So I kept turning it off. But this time I powered through and found a quite interesting story and an entertaining movie.

Set in the near future where America has essentially lost the drug war. Substance D, a powerful hallucinagen has addicted some twenty percent of the population. The govenrment has developed a high tech survelleince system and a large network of undercover agents to combat this.

Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is an undercover agent who has also become addicted to Substance D. At times he doesn’t even realize he is a police officer. He lives in a rundown house with a couple of drug buddies – James (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Ernie (Woody Harrelson). His sort-of girl friend Donna (Winona Ryder) often stops by.

A large part of the plot is basically a hang out movie where we just sit around with these four people as they talk, get high, drive around, and futz about. The conversations are rambling and conspiratorial. And quite funny. These scenes are very reminiscent of several Linklater films, but especially Slackers, where the camera just wandered around Austin, Texas jumping from one oddball character to the next without much sense of a plot.

Sometimes Arctor goes to police headquarters where he dons a scramble suit which constantly changes every aspect of his appearance and voice. This protects his identity from everybody. His bosses get the idea that Arctor (who they do not know is actually their agent) is one of the drug dealers in the area and as such they ask “Fred” (the name they know him by) to enhance his survellaince on Arctor.

The plot does ramp up a bit by the end and it concludes in a fascinating way. There is some interesting commentary on the drug way, and our ever growing surveillance stage. But mostly its just an entertaing film where some great actors hang out and act paranoid.

I still wish it used a differnt animation style.