Posted by Scott in Review, Sundance 2009 | 3 comments
Sundance Review: ‘Big Fan’
This movie was near the top of my list of must see flicks at Sundance. Why do you ask? Well first it has Patton Oswalt and he is ridiculously funny, and second it was written and directed by Robert Siegel who recently penned ‘The Wrestler’. I was wrong, and I absolutely hate admitting that fact. This review has spoilers because it will probably never see a wide release and if it did, you wouldn’t want to see it anyways.
‘Big Fan’ is a movie about Paul (Patton Oswalt),an obsessed NY Giants fan who devotes most of his life to following the Giants, talking about the Giants, and watching the games from the parking lot. He is essentially a loser who still lives at home with his mom, and calls into a sports talk show for fun. One night he and his another obsessive fan spot their favorite player outside and decide to follow him. They eventually end up at a strip club and after hours of watching them party they decided to go talk to him. When he finds out they were following him all night he flips out and beats the hell out of Paul, so bad that he ends up in the hospital and gets himself suspended. As a direct result the Giants go on a losing skid and Paul decides that he will not press charges or sue in order to get him back on the team.
That is the main gist of the movie, or at least 3/4′s of it. I wont completely ruin the story for you but let me tell you this. The movie is filled with MAJOR plot holes, drags along at the pace of Randy The Ram Robinson after his heart attack in ‘The Wrestler’, and you feel the anguish of the movie from the very beginning. It was almost unbearable at points, and the movie couldn’t decide if it was a comedy or a drama. You cant even put the Dramedy title on this one because it attempted to be funny, but fell flat most of the time.
Overall Rating: 2 out of 5
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- Scott blogs Sundance Film Festival 2009: Day 5 | We Are Movie Geeks - [...] of the day was spent hanging out at the Yarrow trying to get work done. Today I saw ‘Big ...
- Review: ‘Big Fan’- We Are Movie Geeks - [...] FAN, originally reviewed from Sundance by Scott here at WAMG, is a movie that’s been getting a lot of ...
I saw this movie with a friend, I really liked it, he hated it. I think that’s the way this movie is going to be received… love/hate. Yea, I think I know what plot holes you’re talking about and I think they’re debatable. None the less they didn’t bother me. What I liked about it (and what my friend hated) was that it really didn’t come to any tidy conclusions literally or thematically. It was really hard to define this film. He went in expecting Oswalt to woop it up and the movie didn’t even really try to funny. Perhaps only in a Todd Solinz kinda way and I think that really pissed some people off. I thought Oswalt was OK but I thought the film overall really hit the nail on the head. I know a million of these guys in New York, the guys that would sell their own mother for a super bowl (or world series, or stanley cup) title. I thought it was a very adept character study. Not a great film but a good one.