Putting The "Fan" Into "Fanatic"

Rating: 5/10 (8 June 2013)

To talk about the movie as a whole, one has to say right off the topic that this isn't especially great. In fact, it may not even be especially good. It's the story of Gil Renard (Robert De Niro) - a former little league star who never made the majors but who's become a fanatical fan of the San Francisco Giants. Gil is also a knife salesman - and a fading one. His marriage has broken up, he's on the outs with his ex-wife, who eventually gets a restraining order to keep him away from their son after he abandons him at a ball game and then forces his way into their house to apologize. So, he's got a lot of personal problems. The "fading salesman with problems" character seems to have more than a little bit in common with characters like Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman" or Shelley Levene in "Glengarry Glen Ross." I would guess that both were probably at least a little bit of an influence for Peter Abrahams, who wrote the book on which this was based, and Phoef Sutton, who adapted it as a screenplay.
De Niro is excellent in the part. To draw another parallel, his portrayal as the obsessed, psychotic fan reminded me a bit of his performance as Max Cady in "Cape Fear." De Niro has the talent and the presence to pull these kinds of characters off, and to be believable while doing it, which isn't always easy. Renard is both obsessed and psychotic. He becomes particularly obsessed with Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes) - a $40 million free agent signing by the Giants who struggles as the season starts, and gets into a battle with Juan Primo (Benecio del Toro) - who was moved from centre field to left field to make room for Rayburn, but who won't give up Rayburn's favourite #11. While Rayburn slumps, Primo becomes a star. The fans turn against Rayburn and embrace Primo. There's some reflection here on the fickleness of sports fans - the "what have you done for me lately" attitude - as well as on the big money that players make. But Gil is on Rayburn's side. He wants Rayburn to succeed - and he becomes obsessed with Rayburn, to the point at which he goes to great lengths to "help" him (watch the movie), and then, when Rayburn won't thank him for what he did, he kidnaps the star's son and threatens to kill him unless Rayburn hits a home run in the next game and publicly dedicates it to Gil. That's the story in a nutshell.
Overall, the story isn't that compelling to be honest. Aside from De Niro's performance, which is excellent throughout, there really wasn't a lot to this. It takes a very long time for the movie to really get going. Most of the first hour or so is tied up with Gil's personal troubles with his job and his son. I didn't think we really needed that long to understand that the character is mentally unstable. Snipes tried hard, and he wasn't bad, but his character was less than compelling. He came across as little more than an arrogant, self-centred millionaire ball player until the angle with his son was introduced. There was very little interesting about the character. Some of the baseball action portrayed had problems. To mention something that really stood out for me - every time Rayburn was portrayed coming up to bat, he went to the batters' box from the dugout? Shouldn't he have been in the on deck circle if he was next up? Minor point perhaps, but it bugged me a bit.
The last half hour (once Rayburn's son is kidnapped) is fairly tense; the last scenes on the field are way too over the top unfortunately. So, no, this isn't really a great movie. It's watchable for De Niro's performance. As far as the story is concerned, you really haven't missed much if you haven't seen this. (5/10)