THE FAN
A film review by Michael Dequina
Copyright 1996 Michael Dequina
(R) *** (out of ****)
As shown in Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, and Cape Fear, Robert DeNiro has nailed down the psycho stalker bit cold. As if he needed to prove it again, DeNiro plays--rather well, I might add--the titular stalker in the new thriller The Fan. While not quite as inspired as the work of its lead, Tony Scott's film is an entertaining piece of work, if not the most original.
Gil Renard's (DeNiro) life is in ruins--he's about to be let go from the sporting knife company is father created, and his wife (Patti D'Arbanville Quinn) won't let him see his son. While everything crashes around him, Gil holds on even more tightly to the one thing that's kept him relatively sane--San Francisco Giants baseball. Ironically, it is also what drives him over the edge, for he becomes obsessed with helping his favorite Giant, highly-paid outfielder Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes), come out of a slump.
Despite fine work from the always-great Snipes, Ellen Barkin (as a tough sports radio host), and, surprisingly, John Leguizamo (appropriately oily as Bobby's agent), this is DeNiro's movie all the way. The territory is quite familiar for him, and as such his work can't help but feel somewhat derivative--the geeky, deluded Gil is a variation of The King of Comedy's Rupert Pupkin. But to make him Pupkineque is a wise choice; Gil, while always somewhat on the edge, comes off as a regular guy--passionate about his likes and dislikes, somewhat overconfident at times, but not nearly as cool as he thinks he is. When Gil does finally lose it, DeNiro doesn't chew the scenery; he remains rather calm, an appropriate acting choice that conveys Gil's feeling of justification for his actions--and, in the process, appears more menacing and more human.
However, the human angle in the latter part of the film comes exclusively from DeNiro, for Phoef Sutton's script doesn't follow the same line. Sutton effectively humanizes Gil in the film's first half, showing how a borderline personality is finally driven to insanity by the turmoil of outside events. But when he crosses that line, all of that goes out the window. There's no more empathizing with Gil, only fear of what he's become--a murderous psycho. It is to DeNiro's credit, and director Scott's, that Gil manages to come off as more. Sutton does manage to work in a great bit near the end of the film where Bobby asks Gil what he wants from him, and, after a moment of pondering, Gil can't come up with an answer. In that brief moment, Sutton vividly shows the absurdity of the stalker mentality.
The biggest problem of The Fan isn't the writing--it's the theatrical trailer, which gives pretty much the whole film away. Director Scott must be commended for making a brisk, stylish film that still manages to create some suspense, even if a number of the plot points were divulged in the trailer. It's not especially scary, but it does entertain, and that's the bottom line.
-- Michael Dequina mrbrown@ucla.edu Visit Mr. Brown's Movie Site at http://members.tripod.com/~MrBrown/
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