I never knew this movie existed until Howard Stern mentioned it on his show last week. I'm glad he did because this was a good movie. Patton Oswalt is once again type-cast as the geeky guy who lives with his mom except this time he's a huge football fan. Michael Rappaport basically just plays himself, a mean spirited jerk, and Kevin Corrigan is once again type-cast as the barely noticeable, somewhat supportive best friend. Despite the three main actors not stretching at all for this movie, it still works somehow. Though I must say that Satan from Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell was disappointing as the police detective. This is definitely a movie you should see.

"Big Fan" is about Paul (Patton Oswalt) who is a really big fan of the New York Giants. It's a simple premise and one that you think you see on a regular basis. But this movie is different because we really meet Paul, on a very personal level. We see everything in his life that makes him who he is. Even though Paul takes the word "fanatic" to a very serious level, he's accessible and it seems very real.It's really slow moving because we basically just follow Paul around as he lives his very lowly life, everything revolving around the Giants, and listens to sports talk radio. I was completely riveted. This is a character study at the highest level. It doesn't use sex or drugs or big-budget action to get us interested, only Paul himself. And a little bit of football talk.This is a darkly comic, but also very real, introspection of a sports fan. Every aspect of Paul had thought put into including interactions with and characteristics of all his family members and friend(s). "Big Fan" is the best mix of character study and sports, written at a very high level.The director and screenwriter, Robert Siegel, also wrote "The Wrestler" which I was not a big fan of. Although it was critically acclaimed, I feel that "Big Fan" actually accomplishes what "The Wrestler" was supposed to - a soul-fulfilling examination of what sports can do to some people. The humour echos the realness and intelligence found in the The Onion - Siegel was an editor in chief. That should just reinforce the recommendation to see this movie.

As sports fans, we always consider the degree to which we support or dedicate ourselves to the team. "Big Fan" is a character study of a man who has formed his identity and life around the New York Giants. The film preys on our expectation that every fan has a clear line when it's time to stop being a fan and start being your own person. That's not true of Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt).The concept of building a film around this type of character allows "Big Fan" to explore the notion of sports psychosis. Writer, director and former Onion editor-in-chief Robert D. Siegel clearly understands that sports films haven't gone in this direction and he already demonstrated the chops to handle unique sports-devoted characters in creating Randy "The Ram" Robinson of Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler." In "Fan," his directorial debut, too much of good film convention is sacrificed to create Paul's psychological profile.The best way to describe Siegel's error with the film is that it never goes straight down the path carved out by the set-up. Paul works a job as a parking lot attendant, but off the clock (and back home with his mother) he calls in regularly to his favorite nighttime sports radio program to defend the Giants and talk smack about the Philadelphia Eagles. His favorite player is a defensive lineman named Quantrell Bishop, so instinctively when glimpsing Bishop at a gas station, Paul and his best friend follow him. He ends up at a nightclub and when Bishop suspects him of stalking, he pummels him within an inch of his life.The expectation is that the film will skyrocket from there. The press are sure to be busting down his door, the police will be on his case, etc. The aftermath is much tamer. The press apparently don't even have his name and on three separate occasions, a detective comes to question him only for Paul to say he "doesn't remember" when the truth is he wants Bishop back on the field so that the Giants can continue pursuing the division championship. The movie never really picks up in pace and disappoints in that regard.It's also hard to cozy up to Paul's mindset. Most people wouldn't let even their sports hero walk away if he nearly killed them, at least not without some kind of apology or settlement. He just wants to go back to being an average Giants fan. That's all he wants in this film. He doesn't want to live on his own, get a real job or make millions in a personal injury suit that his brother wants him to file. There's not having traditional values and denouncing the life that your family wants you to lead, but then there's Paul -- an intriguing but fallible concept.The biggest sin of Siegel's story is how it veers away from being about either rectification of the assault or how Paul's life is being forced in a direction he can't cope with as a result. Instead it's about getting back at the Eagles fan (Michael Rapaport) who calls in to Paul's favorite show and trash-talks. Sure, Siegel's point is to show how Paul wants to be a devoted fan above anything else in his life, but in route to telling us that, a lot of basic storytelling principles are violated and for a plot of this magnitude, "Big Fan" is strangely quiet.~Steven CVisit my site http://moviemusereviews.com

Robert Siegel, the talented new screenwriter responsible for the indie hit, 'The Wrestler', now has written and directed his own feature on a limited budget. 'Big Fan' chronicles the misadventures of Staten Island resident Paul Aufiero, a fanatical New York (football) Giants fan who's in his mid-thirties and still lives at home with his mother. Paul works at a dead-end job as a parking attendant but has no interest in finding a new career. Instead, he pals around with Sal, his best friend, who is equally fanatical about the Giants. The obsessed couple reminds me of the hapless Garth and Wayne from Wayne's World in that they seem to revel in their social awkwardness.The fun of 'Big Fan is to see just how far Paul will go in his obsession with his beloved Giants. A good part of the obsession revolves around Paul's late night calls to a New York sports talk radio station. He's earned a reputation as the special caller from Staten Island, mainly known for his aggressive put-downs of the Philadelphia Eagle football team as well as their fans (Paul has a particularly noxious rivalry with his counterpart in Philadelphia, who also makes numerous late night calls to the station). In his provincial world, Paul fancies himself the king of all Giant fans but doesn't have the self-confidence to speak spontaneously when he calls into the radio talk show (instead he writes down what he wants to say on a pad of paper and reads it over the air, only to have his canned speech interrupted by his mother who ends up castigating him over the phone while the radio audience can hear everything she says).Due to their low paying jobs, Paul and Sal can't afford to buy a ticket and go inside the stadium to watch the Giants. Instead, they dutifully camp themselves out in the Giant parking lot and watch the game on a mini-TV set every week (Siegel was unable to gain permission from the NFL to film inside the stadium, so he created the above 'parking lot' scenario).We break into the Act Two of 'Big Fan' when Paul and Sal spot one of their favorite Giant players, Quantrell Bishop, hanging out with some friends in the Stapleton section of Staten Island. Paul and Sal drive into the City following Bishop and his entourage in their limousine and they all end up at an x-rated club in Manhattan. Paul attempts to strike up a conversation with Bishop and possibly get a picture taken with him. Things go horribly wrong, when a drunken Bishop believes that Paul is some kind of stalker and ends up pummeling him to the point where Paul ends up in a coma for three days. Bishop is immediately suspended by the NFL and his fate is up in the air.When Paul awakes from his coma in the hospital, his brother, a negligence attorney, wants to sue Bishop for $70 million. Naturally, Paul, the die-hard fan, will have nothing to due with the lawsuit much to the chagrin of his brother. Later, an NYPD detective pays numerous calls to Paul and finds that he's a totally uncooperative witness. Had this happened in real-life, Paul's identity would probably have been revealed in about a day's time and he would have been subject to intense media scrutiny. This is one of the major weaknesses in the plot. Instead, Paul's brother institutes the lawsuit without his permission and only after his brother takes action, does the media get wind that it's Paul who was involved in the incident at the strip club.There are moments of inspired lunacy in Big Fan. I particularly liked the take-off on the infomercial created by Paul's brother. The nagging of Paul by family members is not far removed from reality and the hoarding of the soy sauce by Paul's mother is a classic commentary on the root of Paul's dysfunction. Kudos also to the 'Sportsdog', the manic talk show announcer who I'm told has a sports talk show in real life on Sirius FM radio. More could have been done with Paul's sidekick, Sal, who ends up as a glorified cheerleader and what about Bishop? He simply disappears after the incident at the club.Big Fan becomes darker and less comic at the climax. After Paul's identity has been exposed and he's labeled a turncoat on talk radio, he feels he has to prove his 'loyalty' to the Giants so he puts on some 'warpaint' and drives to Philadelphia where he confronts the despised 'Philadelphia Phil' in a bar bathroom. At first it appears that Paul shoots Phil with a real gun which would have destroyed the entire comic tone of the movie; but as it turns out, the gun is merely a paint ball pistol and he ends up showering Phil with paint. Still, the scene underscores Paul's abject pettiness as he must resort to humiliating his rival by pretending that he's about to shoot him. The scene unfortunately makes Phil a much less likable and much more pathetic character as he resorts to violence to deal with his 'humiliation'. And one wonders if a character such as Paul would have done such a thing in the first place. After all, his goal is to prove to as many people as possible that he did not betray his team but his humiliation of Philadelphia Phil happens in a vacuum—no one else will ever get wind of what he did nor would anyone be impressed by his actions.Big Fan would have been more successful if we come to like Paul at the end despite his obsession. Instead, the lovable loser morphs into someone who's mean-spirited. Siegel however is to be commended for satirizing the fanatics of our society who delude themselves into believing that what they have to offer is meaningful, when in reality their obsessions are reflective of a profound shallowness.