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Directed by Robert Siegel
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Big Fan “Big Fan” is a
classic example of the American independent film at its best; the kind of
film that Sundance was built for, the kind of film that serves best as a
marker of the talent of its creator, and in its simplicity of plot and its
complexity of implications, it succeeds at almost everything it tries to
do. “Big Fan” is the
story of Paul Aufiero (played by Patton Oswalt), a classic loser by conventional standards. He’s almost 35, he’s
unmarried, he lives with his mother in Staten Island, he works the night
shift at a parking garage, and he lives for the New York Giants, where he and
his best (and only) friend Sal (Kevin Corrigan) go to the Meadowlands for
every home game – not to buy tickets, which are apparently too
expensive for them, but to hook up a television set to Sal’s car and
watch the game from the parking lot on folding chairs that they bring with
them. And then at night he
listens to Sports Dogg, a sports-radio host, where
he calls in almost every night sometime after midnight, usually waking his
mother up, as he writes down the things he’s going to say when he gets
on the air as Paul from Staten Island.
He has a running feud with another caller, Philadelphia Phil (Michael Rapaport), who disses the
Giants and loves the Eagles. One
night Paul and Sal are out at a gas station when their hero, Quantrell Bishop, the quarterback of the Giants, stops by
to fill up his SUV. The two
decide to follow him into New York, where he goes to a nude/lap-dance bar
with friends. Paul and Sal use
all their money just to keep staying there, then Paul decides to ask Quantrell for his autograph, and maybe even get invited
to join him and his friends as they talk about who they’re going to
have sex with that night.
Instead, what happens is the Quantrell sees
Paul as a stalker and beats him up, putting him in the hospital. His lawyer brother wants to sue, Paul won’t allow it, and even turns down a
police detective who’s looking for a complaint of an unprovoked
attack. Instead, what Paul does
is drive to Philadelphia looking for Philadelphia Phil. The film, which was written
and directed by Robert Siegel, is wonderfully original, brilliantly acted,
especially by Patton Oswalt as Paul and Michael Rapaport as Philadelphia Phil, and shows Siegel has a
wonderful sense of how to direct actors and how to shoot in an unobtrusive
way so as to bring out the tensions that can tear families apart. Even though “Big Fan” got
almost no theatre time, I’d like to see it find an audience as a DVD. |