There is no room for me to laugh. I may have little to no interest in professional sports, but my fandom of other properties runs deep. It wouldn’t be funny if it weren’t true: just an hour or so ago I was explaining to my colleague Mike Hess the difference between a Chrontion Torpedo and a Transphasic Torpedo.
So the passion that erupts from “Paul from Staten Island” during his late-night, pre-mediated screeds on sports talk radio is a social malfunction with which I can wholly empathize.
Keeping his voice low enough so as not to awaken his sleeping mother, yet loud enough to express the vitriolic scorn he has for “Philadelphia Phil” and the other cheesesteak-eating slobs who think the Eagles are better than the Giants, is just one of the reasons why Paul is a virtuoso of the call-in show.
Robert Siegel’s first turn as a director (he wrote The Wrestler and was executive editor of The Onion during their peak years) offers standup comic, sitcom star and Pixar voice actor Patton Oswalt a chance to prove, yet again, that talent is talent, and that dark anti-heroes can come from unexpected sources. Oswalt is marvelous as the rabid football fan who spends each waking moment analyzing stats, fuming over what was written in The Post and preparing nightly minute-long monologues when “Sports Dogg” gives him the floor on his call-in show.
Complications come early when Paul comes face to face with his idol, star defensive back Quantrell Bishop. What ensues is like a bizarro world (and altogether bleak) version of Billy Wilder’s wonderful Matthau/Lemmon film The Fortune Cookie. In that film, an incident of unintended violence is manipulated for greedy purposes, leading to guilt-driven “aw, shucks” forgiveness. The post-Millennial Big Fan presents Paul as irresponsible fool for not taking better advantage of his victimhood.
It is a fabulous “What If?” and Siegel’s screenplay squeezes drama out of every possible story permutation. There are a wonderful group of supporting players here, including a scuzzy lawyer brother and hilariously silicone-breasted sister-in-law. Best, though, is the always wonderful Kevin Corrigan as the enabling, dopey best friend. Never has an outer borough yutz been so perfectly caught on film. Wearing a assortment of “9/11 – We Will Remember” T-Shirts, the smartest thing out of this joker’s mouth is that you shouldn’t drink Mountain Dew, because it is full of chemicals, and instead you should drink Root Beer, because it is natural.
So does this make Big Fan a nasty, misanthropic film? Well, somehow, no. Like the work of Alexander Payne, Big Fan retains trace elements of humanity it all of its humorous humiliation.
Big Fan writes itself a little into a corner – but I’ll be damned if anyone could come up with a better ending than the one presented here. It comes together a tad “short story”-ish, but, then again, it is a low-budget film by a first time director. That’s the way these things normally go.
What Big Fan does do, in an almost shocking feat of true subversion, is to standup for sociopaths who are only an eyelash away from being considered dysfunctional members of society. With so many unhappy people in the world – and in the film – what does it hurt to have a hobby if it keeps you happy?
Release Date: August 28, 2009
Studio: First Independent Pictures
Director: Robert Siegel
Cast: Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Rappaport, Marcia Jean Kurtz
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: R
