Dramatic Feature
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.