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