Robert De Niro should have started making family oriented films at least one movie earlier.
As a new father, De Niro claims "The Fan" will be the final R-rated film he makes. Let's hope so, because, while there may be worse movies this year than this violent but boring thriller, it still could be the nadir of De Niro's career.
The pairing of De Niro with Wesley Snipes in the film, based on Peter Abraham's novel, sounds like a great idea. But the fact that neither actor seems to be very excited to be in "The Fan" is just the beginning of its problems.
De Niro plays is the title character, Gil Renard, a frustrated knife salesman with a host of problems on the workfront and at home. Basically all that keeps him ticking is the chance to see his estranged son and the fact that his beloved San Francisco Giants have signed Bobby Rayburn (Snipes), a superstar outfielder.
Rayburn has seen better days too. Injured while making a hotdogging play on opening day, he's been playing hurt and isn't producing, which has turned the fans on him and his $40 million contract. Worse still, young star Juan Primo (Benicio Del Toro) is producing — at a much lower cost to the team.
Renard suspects the reason Primo is thriving and why Rayburn isn't might be the number 11, which Primo wears and which Rayburn wore with his earlier team. But attempts to get the players to swap numbers have failed, soRenard has to take matters into his own hands, killing the cocky Primo in a steambath.
But while Primo's death seems to have rejuvenated Rayburn, the star hasn't bothered to thank his devoted fan, so Gil begins stalking him as well.
Abrahams' book explored America's obsessions with celebrities, especially sports stars, and there were interesting parallels drawn between the two main characters' lives. A film adaptation seemed natural, especially with fan frustration over escalating athlete salaries — but only in the right hands, which certainly didn't mean either director Tony Scott or screenwriter Phoef Sutton.
That it takes more than an hour for something to actually happen shows how incapable Scott ("True Romance," "Top Gun") is of sustaining any real suspense. The former video and commercial director stresses flashy graphics over solid storytelling, and rips off scores of other suspense and sports movies (among them, "Single White Female" and "The Natural," of all things).
Of course, it might have helped if Sutton ("Mrs. Winterbourne") didn't just put obscenities in De Niro's mouth and had tried to create some three-dimensional characters audiences could care about.
The blame's not just theirs though. Surely De Niro could have put something more on screen than just a bad composite of prior psychotic characters he's played and the Michael Douglas role from "Falling Down."
Snipes doesn't bring much to the screen, either, nor does the usually dependable John Leguizamo, who plays Rayburn's agent. Ellen Barkin, as a smug radio interviewer, and Dan Butler (from TV's "Frasier"), who plays Renard's boss, are good. But they don't exactly spend a lot of time on-screen, and who can blame them?
"The Fan" is rated R for a constant stream of obscenities coming from De Niro, violence, gore and partial nudity in a bar scene.