Waste of time

An Exercise In Nonsense

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

I'm not a baseball fan, although occasionally a good baseball film goes down well. But I admire Robert DeNiro and very much enjoyed Wesley Snipes in his prime. So I really thought I would enjoy this film. You wanna know what RUINED it for me? Overbearing music. It was distracting to the dialogue. Maybe that explains why it was such a bomb at the box office.It certainly wasn't the acting. Robert DeNiro is absolutely great as a man whose life is falling apart...losing his job and losing his son. And so he begins to obsess more and more about his favorite pastime -- baseball...and particularly his favorite player -- Wesley Snipes. OBSESSION...always a dangerous situation.Wesley Snipes is excellent here as well, as a talented baseball player who realizes he is taking the game too seriously. Too bad he tells his rabid fan that! Result -- kidnapping! This film was when Snipes was near his peak.Benicio del Toro is good in a limited role as a young and upcoming baseball player that meets the ire of DeNiro. John Leguizamo is quite good as Snipes' manager...cementing my belief that he was more a supporting actor than primary star.I think the film has a good level of suspense, and I could have easily given it a "7", had it not been for the terrible score.

Sometimes baseball can be more important than life itself.Starring Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes.Written by Peter Abrahams ( Book ) and Phoef Sutton ( Screenplay).Directed by Tony Scott.Sometimes a very average movie can be carried by one great acting performance.It's never been truer said than in this one. Everything else about The Fan is distinctly average. The plot has been done to death. Obsessed fan becomes a dangerous fan. Obsessed fan has newspaper clippings pinned to his walls. Obsessed fan resorts to murder.Most of the acting performances are average as well, including Wesley Snipes in what I'm guessing is one of his early acting roles. Or maybe it's more of a case of actors being miscast?I didn't buy the plot. For the first half of the film the main character is just a terrible husband that seems destined to screw up his relationship with his ex and his son. And then suddenly the movie jumps the shark and he turns into an obsessed fan with a pair of binoculars and a taste for murder. The whole production is a bit of a damp squid but Robert De Niro delivers a good performance that manages to stop the film from hurtling over the edge of a cliff.An average 6/10 but mainly because of Robert De Niro.

If you are a major die hard fan of any sport, then not only will you enjoy this movie, but, we have come a long way since this movie was made, with our so called obsessions of our favorite players, of what we think and how they should play. Also, the money they are getting paid, all professional athletes, we seem to not only become obsessed with our teams and players, but we put them on a pedestal, to perform, no matter what.Thought, this movie kind of makes you think? Are they playing with their heart in the game or have we allowed, and part to blame, to make them almost "unreachable" and to win at all costs! No matter what, watch and enjoy. Deniro fans, couldn't have picked anyone better. I think it's a must see, for all of the above!! Makes you really think.

From the opening scenes of 'The Fan', it's all too obvious that the late Tony Scott was a strange choice of director for a suspense thriller. Scott's trademark flashy visuals, breathless camera work and hyperactive editing are there from the outset as die-hard San Francisco Giants fan Gil (Robert De Niro), speeds across town in his van while engaging in a somewhat bizarre radio phone-in about the Giants' new $40 million star signing Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes).Once things calm down a little, we learn that Gil is a hunting supplies salesman who's having a tough time meeting his targets and is under threat of losing his job. Gil is also divorced and struggling to manage access to his son.When opening day arrives, separate incidents mark a serious downturn in fortunes for both Gil and Bobby, with Gil eventually developing a disturbing obsession with the slugger, thus setting off a frightening chain of events.'The Fan' is remarkable for a suspense thriller in that it lacks any real suspense. Although Tony Scott wasn't helped by a threadbare and illogical script, the clunky camera-work and jumpy editing mar any feeling of involvement or tension for the viewer in many of the scenes, with the excessive use of close ups beginning to grate after a while. Also, the baseball scenes feel very unnatural and stagey. Most regrettable are the attempts to portray the characters' motivations to the audience, which are two dimensional at best, downright lazy at worst. As the movie jumps from one unlikely encounter and set of circumstances to another, all credibility quickly unravels.What rescues this movie from outright mediocrity are the excellent performances from a terrific cast, with De Niro and Snipes both being engaging despite their rather clichéd and poorly scripted roles. The supporting cast is top drawer, with John Leguizamo as Bobby's unscrupulous agent and Ellen Barkin's languid radio host being highlights, especially in their all too brief scenes together.Over and above the poor quality of the script, you're left with the impression that this is a movie with plenty of style but little in the way of substance. A different choice of director would have helped this movie be more than the mediocre pulp fare that it is, as although Scott was a fine director, creating tension and projecting believable characters was not his forte. Although 'The Fan' is fairly watchable in parts, by the time the hammy and frankly ludicrous final act is over, you're left with a feeling that it could all have been so much better.