More than just a heartless exercise in sports obsession.

Rating: 7/10 (22 August 2006)

Watching The Fan, it's difficult,at times,to see beneath its in-your-face presentation and realize what the film is actually about. Since the beginning of the century, America's been obsessed with sports. Just as much as the sports being played, people adore the athletes who play them. I've seen people who literally dedicate every breathing moment of their life to their favorite sports star. Gil Renard, the man at the center of The Fan, is this kind of guy, and then some.
On the surface, the movie can be seen as a two-dimensional thriller about a psychotic baseball nut. You could also say that for every motive this guy has for doing what he does, none of them seem to justify his actions. This kind of bleak criticism seems unfair though, since after taking into context the film's parallel telling of middle class suffering against the fame and fortune of a life in the spotlight, the film begins to transform into a sad story of a man down on his luck.
The film begins with an unusual but effective sequence that has Robert De Niro voicing a poem over a montage of stock baseball footage. With this, we're brought into the down-sliding life of Gil Renard. His career as a knife salesman is nearly coming to an end, his ex-wife is on the verge of taking his son away from him, and he has an appointment scheduled during the San Francisco Giants season opener. But Gil has one thing going for him: center field superstar Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes) has signed a $40 million contract with the Giants. Gil is ecstatic, but as his luck on the field stacks high, his personal life goes tragically downhill.
Soon Gil begins to replace life itself with a fantastic obsession with Rayburn's performance on the field. And when the superstar enters a slump and loses his $40 million worth, Gil takes it upon himself to get his favorite player hitting again, whatever it takes.
For Tony Scott, The Fan marks his first foray into character study, but is only an addition to thrillers on his filmography. Scott isn't exactly the first director I'd expect to take over a project like this, not because he isn't capable of doing a thriller with depth, but because his direction is often too action oriented to devote an audience's attention to the characters. Here though, his style and hyper-kinetic visuals never detract from the story. If anything, Scott puts an interesting spin on things that make them more effective than they would without him.
De Niro is used to playing this kind of character by now. Since the seventies, he's played psychotic stalkers to the point of perfection. As Gil, his obsessiveness toward Rayburn feels more out of desperation than of pure lunacy, thus separating his performance here from the likes of Max Cady in Cape Fear. Snipes, on the other end, hadn't accomplished quite as big a reputation in his role as the Giants slugger, but he puts in a believable performance and looks like he can swing a bat like the real pros.
As opposite ends of the social pipeline, De Niro's blue collar salesman and Snipes' pampered center fielder, and the differences in their lifestyles are what The Fan is actually about. As Gil's life slides down a long slope, Rayburn is treated like a star throughout. Even if his average isn't what the fans want to see. Rayburn's life will never hit as low a point as Renard's. Beyond its thriller like exterior, The Fan is a commentary on sports obsession.