starring Patton Oswalt & Kevin Corrigan
In a nutshell: The only thing keeping me from loving it without qualification is the ending. I can't decide whether or not it worked, but it certainly made me think about it a lot more than your average ending
Quick synopsis: A downward spiral in the life of a man to whom the NY football Giants mean far too much.
Content: I cannot possibly discuss my thoughts on Big Fan without talking about the ending. But before I give the spoiler alert, a few comments on the rest of the movie:
Patton Oswalt...who knew you were anything more than a dirty (and funny) comedian? I was impressed by his voice acting skills as Remy the Rat in Ratatouille, but voice acting hardly counts, right? That's like evaluating chef only by the smell of his food. Does it taste great too? In Big Fan, we get to taste the meal, and it tastes surprisingly good.
The movie comments on the very odd subculture of hardcore sports fans who enjoy a bizarre kind of anonymous local celebrity as disembodied voices who are regular callers on sports talk radio and have funny nicknames like "Walter from the Cape" or "Maurice in the car". It's a subculture I am somewhat familiar with, being an on-again-off-again listener of WEEI 850 sports radio back is Boston. Big Fan's paints a rather cynical (and probably fairly accurate) image of these people as working class schmoes who spend hours every day planning and scripting their big moment - the highlight of their day - their minute or two of airtime in which they get to unleash their finest insults upon rival callers.
The main character, "Paul from Staten Island", is one of these callers. He has a big Italian family he doesn't get along with and one real friend with whom he shares an unhealthy obsession with the Giants. He fills the void in his life with perceived relationships with his beloved team, the talk show's host and a particularly devious Eagles-supporting caller, none of whom give a second thought to poor Paul at the end of the day while Paul sits alone writing a script for his next foray onto the airwaves. It paints the world as a dark and unfriendly place that only rewards those bold enough to go out and grab a piece of it for themselves, a category Paul most certainly does not fit into. Paul pours his heart, soul and nearly all his free time into his obsession with the Giants who not only don't love him back (Fever Pitch covered that territory well enough) but, in this case, actually turn against him. His reaction is the make-or-break point for Big Fan. But we'll get to that later.
Big Fan has some other interesting points to make as well. It touches on personal injury lawyers and the lawsuit-happy nature of America. It comments on the dangers of investing so much of yourself in one pursuit and on the effects when that pursuit yields no results. It even supports a few of my long-held stereotypes about the lovely people that inhabit the Island of Staten. What do each of these themes have in common? The are all incredibly cynical perspectives on today's culture. This attitude that the film establishes beyond any doubt is the source of my confusion about the ending.
SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!
So one day everything starts going wrong for Paul...and I do mean EVERYTHING. He gets beaten up by his idol, Giants QB Quantrell Bishop, after a confrontation in a night club and ends up in the hospital for a few days. Then he starts getting terrible headaches and is unable to sleep. Even worse, the single thing that brought him joy - the Giants - has now been compromised which is the source of endless confusion for Paul. The fallout from the incident strains his relationships with his family - especially with his brother who sues the star quarterback on Paul's behalf without his permission. Paul hits rock bottom when his on-air rival discovers that "Paul from Staten Island" - the biggest Giants fan on the face of the earth - is singlehandedly responsible for Quantrell's legal trouble and suspension, and the Giants subsequent slump of biblical proportions. Now, all of a sudden, Paul's love affair with his team has been violated from both directions and he no longer has the one thing is life that keeps him sane.
At this point, Big Fan seems to be growing into a full-blown tragedy. Paul's life is spinning out of control and I could not help but think of the explosion of violence that the similar decline of Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver) led to - especially when Paul reaches his apparent breaking point and does something extremely contrary to the passive personality he has displayed throughout the film and pockets a gun as he sets off to find the Philadelphia bar that his Eagle-loving nemesis has challenged him to visit during the winner-takes-all Giants/Eagles showdown.
What follows I did not see coming.
SERIOUSLY! LAST CHANCE TO STOP READING BEFORE THE REALLY BIG SPOILER!!!!
I kinda believed it when Paul follows the guy into the bathroom and winds up shooting him several times. I didn't like it, but it made sense considering Paul's progression. An incredibly dark ending to a dark movie. As the victim is slumped in the corner looking at the red liquid all over his hands and shirt I was shaken by what Paul was capable of when everything was taken from him. Then the camera pulls out a little and we see that the liquid on the victim's other hand is blue. Good for the movie for not spelling it out and giving me several seconds to comprehend on my own that what I was seeing was paint. And not just any paint, Giants colors. Those few seconds of confusion followed by realization are what the best twist endings are made of.
But then I started thinking about this twist and started disliking it. The worst kind of twist is one that doesn't have any narrative purpose other than to surprise the viewer. These are usually distinguished by the fact that there is absolutely no evidence (especially on repeat viewings) that they are coming. I felt betrayed by the past hour of the movie which set a particular dark tone. I felt that the twist was only there to supply the film with a twist ending and not because it made any sense.
But the more I thought about it, the more it started to make sense. Most of the judgments that I made about where the story was headed were caused by my own cynical assumptions. Sure, the filmmaker might have encouraged me to follow this path by showing me things like a gun handle protruding from Paul's pocket, but I also saw what I expected to see. Director Robert Siegel let me walk myself down that road.
In retrospect, the twist was consistent with Paul's character after all. He was a pathetic guy not capable of anything more than a football-themed prank as an outlet for his football-based rage, even when he was at rock bottom. And besides, to him, Giants football is life and death, so his "extreme" actions are probably the logical conclusion that a person like that would have reached when they decided to take drastic action. To him, he exacted the ultimate revenge on his foe. Luckily for everyone, it seems Paul spends far more time watching football than elaborate revenge fantasies like Kill Bill, Oldboy and even that infamous South Park episode, Scott Tenorman Must Die. It seems so obvious now that Paul's character would never have actually shot anyone, but I temporarily talked myself into it. I think that really says something about the conditioning of moviegoers in this day and age.
The film ends with a lovely, quirky bit of optimism, reminding us how stupid we were to have been fooled before the twist. This final conversation left me with a pretty enduring positive final impression of Big Fan and drove home its lesson. I will try to remember this lesson, but the overwhelming proliferation of violence in today's movies and the resulting mentality of media consumers will (sadly) probably win out once again in the long run.
Rolling rankings:The movie comments on the very odd subculture of hardcore sports fans who enjoy a bizarre kind of anonymous local celebrity as disembodied voices who are regular callers on sports talk radio and have funny nicknames like "Walter from the Cape" or "Maurice in the car". It's a subculture I am somewhat familiar with, being an on-again-off-again listener of WEEI 850 sports radio back is Boston. Big Fan's paints a rather cynical (and probably fairly accurate) image of these people as working class schmoes who spend hours every day planning and scripting their big moment - the highlight of their day - their minute or two of airtime in which they get to unleash their finest insults upon rival callers.
The main character, "Paul from Staten Island", is one of these callers. He has a big Italian family he doesn't get along with and one real friend with whom he shares an unhealthy obsession with the Giants. He fills the void in his life with perceived relationships with his beloved team, the talk show's host and a particularly devious Eagles-supporting caller, none of whom give a second thought to poor Paul at the end of the day while Paul sits alone writing a script for his next foray onto the airwaves. It paints the world as a dark and unfriendly place that only rewards those bold enough to go out and grab a piece of it for themselves, a category Paul most certainly does not fit into. Paul pours his heart, soul and nearly all his free time into his obsession with the Giants who not only don't love him back (Fever Pitch covered that territory well enough) but, in this case, actually turn against him. His reaction is the make-or-break point for Big Fan. But we'll get to that later.
Big Fan has some other interesting points to make as well. It touches on personal injury lawyers and the lawsuit-happy nature of America. It comments on the dangers of investing so much of yourself in one pursuit and on the effects when that pursuit yields no results. It even supports a few of my long-held stereotypes about the lovely people that inhabit the Island of Staten. What do each of these themes have in common? The are all incredibly cynical perspectives on today's culture. This attitude that the film establishes beyond any doubt is the source of my confusion about the ending.
SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!
So one day everything starts going wrong for Paul...and I do mean EVERYTHING. He gets beaten up by his idol, Giants QB Quantrell Bishop, after a confrontation in a night club and ends up in the hospital for a few days. Then he starts getting terrible headaches and is unable to sleep. Even worse, the single thing that brought him joy - the Giants - has now been compromised which is the source of endless confusion for Paul. The fallout from the incident strains his relationships with his family - especially with his brother who sues the star quarterback on Paul's behalf without his permission. Paul hits rock bottom when his on-air rival discovers that "Paul from Staten Island" - the biggest Giants fan on the face of the earth - is singlehandedly responsible for Quantrell's legal trouble and suspension, and the Giants subsequent slump of biblical proportions. Now, all of a sudden, Paul's love affair with his team has been violated from both directions and he no longer has the one thing is life that keeps him sane.
At this point, Big Fan seems to be growing into a full-blown tragedy. Paul's life is spinning out of control and I could not help but think of the explosion of violence that the similar decline of Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver) led to - especially when Paul reaches his apparent breaking point and does something extremely contrary to the passive personality he has displayed throughout the film and pockets a gun as he sets off to find the Philadelphia bar that his Eagle-loving nemesis has challenged him to visit during the winner-takes-all Giants/Eagles showdown.
What follows I did not see coming.
SERIOUSLY! LAST CHANCE TO STOP READING BEFORE THE REALLY BIG SPOILER!!!!
I kinda believed it when Paul follows the guy into the bathroom and winds up shooting him several times. I didn't like it, but it made sense considering Paul's progression. An incredibly dark ending to a dark movie. As the victim is slumped in the corner looking at the red liquid all over his hands and shirt I was shaken by what Paul was capable of when everything was taken from him. Then the camera pulls out a little and we see that the liquid on the victim's other hand is blue. Good for the movie for not spelling it out and giving me several seconds to comprehend on my own that what I was seeing was paint. And not just any paint, Giants colors. Those few seconds of confusion followed by realization are what the best twist endings are made of.
But then I started thinking about this twist and started disliking it. The worst kind of twist is one that doesn't have any narrative purpose other than to surprise the viewer. These are usually distinguished by the fact that there is absolutely no evidence (especially on repeat viewings) that they are coming. I felt betrayed by the past hour of the movie which set a particular dark tone. I felt that the twist was only there to supply the film with a twist ending and not because it made any sense.
But the more I thought about it, the more it started to make sense. Most of the judgments that I made about where the story was headed were caused by my own cynical assumptions. Sure, the filmmaker might have encouraged me to follow this path by showing me things like a gun handle protruding from Paul's pocket, but I also saw what I expected to see. Director Robert Siegel let me walk myself down that road.
In retrospect, the twist was consistent with Paul's character after all. He was a pathetic guy not capable of anything more than a football-themed prank as an outlet for his football-based rage, even when he was at rock bottom. And besides, to him, Giants football is life and death, so his "extreme" actions are probably the logical conclusion that a person like that would have reached when they decided to take drastic action. To him, he exacted the ultimate revenge on his foe. Luckily for everyone, it seems Paul spends far more time watching football than elaborate revenge fantasies like Kill Bill, Oldboy and even that infamous South Park episode, Scott Tenorman Must Die. It seems so obvious now that Paul's character would never have actually shot anyone, but I temporarily talked myself into it. I think that really says something about the conditioning of moviegoers in this day and age.
The film ends with a lovely, quirky bit of optimism, reminding us how stupid we were to have been fooled before the twist. This final conversation left me with a pretty enduring positive final impression of Big Fan and drove home its lesson. I will try to remember this lesson, but the overwhelming proliferation of violence in today's movies and the resulting mentality of media consumers will (sadly) probably win out once again in the long run.
1. Jackie Brown (#173)
2. Avatar (#176)
3. Sherlock Holmes (#178)
4. Anvil! The Story of Anvil (#172)
5. Big Fan (#180)
6. The Cove (#177)
7. Julie and Julia (#175)
8. Kids (#179)
9. Angels & Demons (#174)
10. The American Nightmare (#171)
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