Big Fan (2009) (Tuesday, January 19, 2010) (217)

Big Fan is a small gritty drama about a loser parking lot attendant (Patton Oswalt) who is obsessed with the New York Giants. He works nights and spends time in his booth listening to sports talk radio and writing long slams at the Giants' next opponents that he reads on air when he calls in to the show. One night, he sees his favorite player pumping gas near his house in Staten Island. He and his buddy follow the guy into Manhattan and into a strip club. When Oswalt approaches the player to talk to him, the player beats the crap out of him. Oswalt then has to decide whether he will press charges against the player and possibly hurt his beloved team by getting the player suspended.

The story is very clever, tight and follows a pretty honest, realistic path for any superfans around the world (I could easily see a similar story playing out in England with soccer or Canada with hockey, for instance). It moves along quickly and keeps a good pace throughout. There are a few details, though, in the script (or in the direction) that are frustrating and badly executed (like how Oswalt doesn't make his calls to the radio station from a mobile phone outside of his mother's house where he lives, rather than in his childhood bedroom where his mother can hear him and get upset that he's keeping her awake). This is the first directing gig for Robert D. Siegel (who also wrote this film as well as The Wrestler) and perhaps with a bit more time, small things like this will be ironed out in his work.

Oswalt's performance is really great (he had a fabulous 2009, by the way, with this and two supporting performances in Observe and Report and The Informant!). He is pitiful but likable and is totally convincing in his blind dedication to his team and his sad life. He knows it's sad, but it's good for him. He's lazy and somewhat limited, but he enjoys the power and attention he gets from his nightly talk radio calls. He likes being seen as someone who knows something about stuff and enjoys the power he feels from his minor celebrity with listeners.

I think part of what makes the movie enjoyable is that we all know people roughly like Oswalt. We see the guy at work with the football team flag or schedule; we know friends who travel out of town for their team (even for a sure loss); we know people who do fantasy leagues sports and are obsessed with minutiae of sports. This movie feels like a plausible scenario in the modern world of superfandom and it's intimate, small-budget look lends a nice patina to the little story.

Stars: 2.5 of 4