Movie Review: Big Fan

Big Fan (2009)  

Directed by Robert D. Siegel

Written by Robert D. Siegel 

Starring Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Rappaport, Josh Trank

Release Date August 28th, 2009 

Published September 15th, 2009 

The rise of the man-child is one of the darkest moments of our culture. This basement dwelling cretin, personified by his lack of social grace, living with their mother and desperate clinging to childish things, has risen to prominence in just the last ten or so years and is becoming something of a force.

The movies are a haven for these overgrown children, as the career of Adam Sandler and his minions attests. In these movies the lifestyle of the man-child is critiqued but most often accepted and assimilated into the lives of exceptionally forgiving, stunningly attractive adult women in a tacit approval of the man-child life choice.

“Big Fan” is the rare film that takes the man-child to task for his childish proclivities. Directed by Robert Siegel, Oscar nominated screenwriter for “The Wrestler,” and starring comedian Patton Oswalt, “Big Fan” is a dark, ironic, parody of the man-child and his obsessions.

Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt) is obsessed with the New York Giants. He lives and dies with the team’s wins and losses. His nights at work, he's a parking attendant, are spent scribbling scripts for late night phone calls he places to a sports radio station. There he is Paul from Staten Island, a legend among other man-children for his passionate defenses of the Giants and attacks on their opponents. Paul even has a mortal enemy on the radio in Philadelphia Phil (Michael Rappaport). These witless battles of wit are at the center of Paul's being.

The plot of “Big Fan” kicks in when Paul and his man-child buddy Sal spot their favorite player, Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm) in their neighborhood. They choose to follow him and track QB back to Manhattan and a very pricey strip club. There, Paul gets up the nerve to approach his hero and wakes up several days later in the hospital.

Quantrell beat the holy hell out of Paul after he confessed that he and Sal had followed him. Now, as Paul awakes from a coma his only concern remains whether the Giants won or lost while he was out. When asked about the assault; Paul’s fan-boy nature kicks in and he develops amnesia. Will he turn in his hero or keep the secret to save his team?

The answer is not so much the subject of “Big Fan.” Rather, it’s something of a foregone conclusion by the time the answer arrives. “Big Fan” is not a mystery or a crime thriller but a darkly humorous, endlessly ironic observation of severe arrested development.

What Director Robert Siegel and star Patton Oswalt are after is a critique of man-child fan-boys whose obsessions have rendered them ill-equipped to deal with the fully formed adults around them. In movies like “Failure to Launch” starring Matt McConaughey or “Big Daddy” with Adam Sandler this childishness is played as charm. In “Big Fan” it is realistically pathetic.

Taking the critique further, director Siegel adds a disquieting homo-eroticism to Paul’s hero worship. Paul has a poster of Quantrell over his bed. He dreams about Quantrell, sweating and snarling, shirtless in his three point stance. Though Paul is too timid and immature to get it, he is a frustrated, closeted homosexual whose frustration is channeled into his love of sport.

Whether it’s Tom Brady or Han Solo this level of obsessive hero worship tinged with homo-erotic undertones is part of the culture of the man-child. Are all man-children closeted homosexuals? No, but frustrated sexuality and sexual identity are an aspect of the man-child most often unexplored.

Patton Oswalt is fearless in exploring these aspects of Paul Aufiero. Though he does well to keep Paul in the dark about his true self, Oswalt and director Robert Siegel are downright elegant in the ways they reveal and subtly ridicule Paul’s ignorance. In sending up Paul they send up those like Paul, the emotionally stunted, childishly obsessed man-child.

Darkly humorous, endlessly clever and revealing, “Big Fan” is a punch in the mouth to the growing man-child culture. Where so many movies let these overgrown children off the hook, “Big Fan” holds a mirror up to them and reveals them for who they truly are. It’s not a pretty picture.

Movie Review Hitch

Hitch (2005) 

Directed by Andy Tennant

Written by Kevin Bisch

Staring Will Smith, Eva Mendes, Kevin James, Amber Valetta, Michael Rappaport, Adam Arkin

Release Date February 11th, 2005

Published February 9th, 2005

With his wit, style and natural charisma it's a wonder Will Smith waited this long to master the romantic comedy genre. In fact it's been five years, the ill-received drama The Legend Of Bagger Vance, since Smith has done a film without a weapon in his hand and an explosion at his back. Not since his breakthrough on TV's "Fresh Prince Of Bel Air" has Smith done anything close to a straight comedy. With his latest film Hitch, Smith shows that while practice may make perfect some just don't need it.

In New York City there is an urban legend about a guy so charming that he has taken to teaching other men to emulate his charms. This legend is known as the Date Doctor and while most don't believe he exists, he does in the form of Alex Hitchens, known as Hitch to his clients. The Date Doctor guarantees he can help any guy get any girl in three dates or less. Don't get the wrong idea, Hitch won't help a guy with a one night stand, only serious relationship-seekers need apply.

Oddly enough, the man who has made obtaining love for others his life does not believe in love for himself. That is until Hitch meets Sara (Eva Mendes), a cynical gossip columnist who ironically does not believe the Date Doctor exists. From her dates with Hitch she has no reason to believe it could be him as one disaster after the next intervenes to ruin each date. For some reason Hitch's natural charm fails him at every turn in terrifically disastrous romantic comedy fashion.

Because Sara doesn't believe there is such a person as a Date Doctor you have your natural romantic comedy obstacle: how will she react to finding out her new boyfriend is this mystical Date Doctor. First she has to find out and that is where Albert (Kevin James from TV's "King Of Queens") comes in. Albert is a lovable but socially inept accountant who has fallen head over heels for a supermodel named Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta). With Hitch's help Albert manages to get a date with Allegra which catches the attention of the gossip columnist and our plot kicks in.

Hitch is not exactly original in execution. The film has many, if not all, of the classic romantic comedy cliches. Director Andy Tennant knows those cliches backwards and forwards.  They are his bread and butter from the awful, cliche ridden Reese Witherspoon comedy Sweet Home Alabama to the slightly less repulsive Matthew Perry-Salma Hayek rom-com Fools Rush In. Tennant directs as if he has never known another way to tell a story.

What makes Hitch stand apart from other romantic comedies is star Will Smith and his love interest, the smoldering and sexy Eva Mendes. Where previous couplings in films directed by Andy Tennant have fizzled under the weight of his heavy handed direction, Smith and Mendes manage to float above the commonness of the film. They are helped greatly by James, who does much of the comic heavy lifting. With James shouldering the burden of the more tiresome and forced comic moments, Smith and Mendes are free to turn up the romantic heat with their sparkling chemistry.

Hitch is what it is-- genre fluff that succeeds, like all modern romantic comedies, on the star power of its cast and their ability to transcend even the most damningly familiar plot elements. Will Smith is more than star enough for the task.

Movie Review: Comic Book Villains

Comic Book Villains (2002) 

Directed by James Robinson

Written by James Robinson 

Starring Donal Logue, D.J Qualls, Cary Elwes, Natasha Lyonne, Michael Rappaport 

Release Date September 3rd, 2002 

Published September 9th, 2002 

The comic book fanboy culture is ripe for satire. Such was shown in Kevin Smith's brilliant Chasing Amy. Comics aren't the center of that film but the scenes involving comics and the comic convention are comedic gold. Comic Book Villains aspires to tell the story of some serious fanboys but in reality it's a ridiculous farce with not one likeable character.

DJ Qualls stars as Archie, a comic fanboy who is beginning to grow out of his former obsession. Though he would never tell that to Raymond, his best friend and the owner of the most snobbish comic store in town, and proud of it. Raymond, played by Donal Logue, is the ultimate fanboy who won't speak to anyone who doesn't the names of the Fantastic Four, their alter egos, how they got their powers, which issue introduced what character and various other pieces of minutia someone with no friends and especially no dates would know.

Raymond's rivals in the comic biz are Norman (Michael Rappoport) and his wife Judy (Natascha Lyonne). Though they aren't comic book fans they know a quick buck when they see it.

The rivalry comes to a head when a 40-something collector kicks the bucket, leaving behind the ultimate comic collection. Raymond and Norman are each quick to pounce on the guy's clueless mom who never understood her son's obsession with those funny books. The mom is played by the venerable Eileen Brennen, and as she puts up with Raymond and Norman's incessant begging and pleading, she strikes up a real friendship with Archie who has been dragged into the mess by Raymond.

As the comic book war heats up both, sides begin to lose their grip on reality as they each plot a break-in of the old woman's house to steal the comics. Raymond goes as far as attempting to hire a hitman to kill the old lady and steal the comics.

The hitman is played by Cary Elwes and at the beginning, his character is the only sympathetic character in the film. He's a guy who's fresh from prison and looking to rebuild his life. Director James Robinson makes the hitman character both sympathetic and menacing which is supposed to prepare us for the film's climax. Sadly this fails as Elwes gets sucked into the plot's stupidity and is then crushed underneath it like all of the other characters.

Every character in the film is a complete moron, with the possible exception of DJ Qualls'sArchie who isn't as stupid as the other characters. Still, his character is just utterly useless. Archie narrates the story but is not really involved in it. He should consider himself lucky! Elwes, Logue, Rappaport and Lyonne probably wish their characters weren't involved in this ridiculousness but they are and they suffer greatly for it.

Writer-Director James Robinson has crafted a thoroughly unlikable film. Incoherent, ridiculous and endlessly stupid. The film is marketed as a comedy and you would think since it's about comic books, it would be, but it's not. In fact I'm not sure James Robinson intended to make a comedy. It seemed to me he was trying for drama and suspense. He failed miserably.