Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 85
Fresh: 75 | Rotten: 10
Featuring Patton Oswalt's sympathetic portrayal, Big Fan humorously and effectively captures the dark and lonely world of a sports fanatic.
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Critic Reviews: 24
Fresh: 21 | Rotten: 3
Featuring Patton Oswalt's sympathetic portrayal, Big Fan humorously and effectively captures the dark and lonely world of a sports fanatic.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 32,645
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A parking garage attendant and lifelong New York Giants fan finds his life spinning out of control following an altercation with his favorite football player in this darkly comic drama starring Patton Oswalt. For 35-year-old Staten Island native Paul Aufiero (Oswalt), sports are a religion. Paul still lives with his mother, he's the self-proclaimed "world's biggest New York Giants fan," and he spends most of his spare time calling in to the local sports radio station 760 "The Zone," where he can
Aug 28, 2009 Wide
Jan 12, 2010
$0.1M
First Independant Pictures
All Critics (85) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (77) | Rotten (10) | DVD (5)
First-time director Siegel shows promise. His script is solid, and although the last act feels somewhat awkward, the idea is clever.
Writer-director Robert D. Siegel grew up listening to callers like Paul on The FAN, New York City's all-sports radio, and he gives us a bizarrely sympathetic portrait of a guy who is as devout and as obsessive as any religious fanatic.
It's a classic situation, transplanted to a small, petty arena. When I think of this movie, I think of Oswalt, how his anguish feels real (whether we understand it or not) and how his face unaccountably becomes an offbeat locus of dignity.
Though the movie isn't much to look at, he gets a credibly dark and pathetic performance from the typically comic Oswalt.
A comedy with dark undertones, it asks: What kind of a man listens to and calls sports talk radio compulsively, even at 2 a.m.? Even out of season? Even on, say, Thanksgiving? He should get a life, do you think?
A bleakly funny character study of a very particular species of urban fauna -- the sports radio call-in fanatic -- Big Fan is compulsively watchable.
Astute at observing the behaviors and mindset of the fan who sees no distinction between himself and the team.
Unlovable loser chooses the "low" road
Paul may in many ways be the ultimate 'loser' but he feels like a 'winner', so this becomes not just a study of obsession but of the essence of self-delusion and its importance in many people's lives.
effectively delivers the clueless mentality of the empty headed sports fanatic to life,
A Taxi Driver style moody yarn about your basic Big Apple bottom feeder schlemiel moping his way through existence, the film touches on the darker side of sports geekdom and living life as a spectator sport through others.
There's always next season
The decision to look at sports fandom through the lens of addiction gives Big Fan its power, its believability, its pathos, and its humor.
I didn't enjoy Big Fan, perhaps due to my lifelong total disinterest in sports but I can say that it is quite good and well-made, and Oswalt does a terrific job.
An odd mixture of "Marty" and "The Cabdriver", best when it focuses on the Marty side of the equation.
Big Fan is wonderfully written, cliche-free and fully capable of surprising you.
Paul is a sad figure, but the edge is taken off this by his single-minded (some would say dim-witted) devotion to the Giants.
...the movie boasts a rough visual sensibility that's mirrored in both the performances and the meandering narrative...
We're stuck on the ledge, waiting to see if Paul will jump. Painful, but good.
What makes Paul fascinating isn't how pathetic he is. It's how dignified he thinks he is, and how that knit blue cap with "NY" on the front gives his life meaning.
Screenwriter Siegel, directing his first film, lavishes as much attention on forty-year-old virgin Paul as he did on "Randy the Ram" in The Wrestler.
Robert D. Siegel, bring a criative screenplay that show to the audience the empty and lonely life of Paul Aufiero, Patton Oswalt in a very good acting, a sport fanatic, just like others fans. Big Fan, is a terrific independant dark comedy that, make me want see the film from the beginning to the end. Fresh.
November 19, 2011Super Reviewer
Big Fan is a minor, dark indie masterpiece, full of honesty, drama, pathos and painful humor. Writer/director Robert Seigel shows immense talent as an observer of obsessive losers who have the audience's absolute empathy, despite of - or because of --their utter lack of self awareness. .Be warned if you're expecting
November 16, 2011Super Reviewer
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