THE FAN
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1996 Chuck Dowling
(1996) **** - C:Robert De Niro, Wesley Snipes, Ellen Barkin, John Leguizamo, Benicio del Toro, Chris Mulkey.
I have the feeling that this film will not do well. However, "The Fan" has many things going for it to draw in the crowds. It has the greatest actor working today, Robert De Niro. It has Wesley Snipes, who can be a box office draw. It's a suspense film, in the tradition of "Cape Fear". And it's about baseball, which appeals to sports fans. It might open strong, but afterwards bad word of mouth is sure to spread quickly.
De Niro plays Gil Renard, a knife salesman and baseball fan who is just slightly starting to lose touch with reality. The film starts near baseball's opening day and Gil's hometown team, the San Francisco Giants, have high hopes for their newly acquired hitting sensation Bobby Rayburn (Snipes). Gil, unfortunately, also has huge expectations for the new player.
We find out that Gil is slipping at his salesman job, and unless he lands a big account, he is going to be fired. The only chance he has to secure the account would mean that he would miss the opportunity for him and his son to see the opening game of the season. He tries to do both however, and neither situation works out.
The events which occur at the ballpark enrage Gil's ex-wife, who gets a restraining order preventing Gil from seeing his son. Also, as a result of him missing his sales appointment, he loses his job. These two events push a man who was already on the edge of sanity, completely over the line. So Gil grasps hold of the only thing he has left: baseball. And more specifically, Bobby Rayburn.
Bobby, on the other hand, is having problems of his own. A mild injury he received in the opening game is hampering his game play and he enters a slump. To make matters worse, the Giants' player that he replaced (del Toro) is starting to play very well, making Rayburn look even worse. As a result, the fans immediately turn on Rayburn. Everyone that is except for Gil. In his new, demented state of mind he will do whatever it takes to insure that his favorite player Rayburn has every opportunity to lead his team to victory.
Overall, I think that in terms of story and screenplay, the film is not well crafted. First, the previews are wildly misleading. The previews make you think that the movie is about psycho De Niro stalking Snipes for the whole film, when actually that's only the last 30 minutes or so. Second, there really isn't that much going on in the film. I mean, the opening game of the season eats up about 20-25 minutes of the movie, and the events of the game really aren't that crucial. Also, there's absolutely no character to like here. You've got psycho De Niro on one side, and cold, unsympathetic Snipes on the other. So you've got a conflict between two characters that no one will care if either of them comes out on top. Normally, all of these things add up to a bad movie by my standards. But there is one specific thing about the film which I enjoyed tremendously. So much, in fact, that it was enough to give the film such a high rating.
Robert De Niro.
De Niro gives such a fun performance that I was entertained to the point that I could overlook all of the negative things about the film. His performance calls to mind, naturally, other roles he's played in the past, probably most specifically Rupert Pupkin from Scorsese's "The King of Comedy". De Niro is given a great deal to do in the film and he make the most out of every scene he's in. One particular scene in which he chases after a foul ball is one of the funniest moments I've seen on film in a long time. But, only because it's Robert De Niro. I don't think any other actor could have made me enjoy this character like De Niro did. Sure he's just playing a variation on countless other roles he's done in the past. But it's what he does best and it's enough for me. There are a couple of other good things about the film. Tony Scott's direction is excellent, as always. The soundtrack which consists of many Rolling Stones songs and score music from Hans Zimmer helps to move the film along nicely. Also, there's a great "surprise" during the final scene which I really enjoyed. So overall, most people probably will dislike the film, but De Niro made it worth my time.
Have A Question Or Comment? Email Me At chuckd21@southeast.net
-- Chuck Dowling Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Over 1,500 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, box office reports, film related links, and reader's polls and reviews.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews