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Reviews Counted:70
Fresh:60
Rotten:10
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: Featuring Patton Oswalt's sympathetic portrayal, Big Fan humorously and effectively captures the dark and lonely world of a sports fanatic.
Synopsis: Paul Aufiero, a 35-year-old parking-garage attendant from Staten Island, is the self-described "world's biggest New York Giants fan". He lives at home with his mother, spending his off hours... [More]
Starring: Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Rapaport, Marcia Jean Kurtz
Director: Robert Siegel
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.
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.
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.
...Siegel seems more interested in exhibiting Paul as a not-so-rare species of delusional male thwartedness than granting him an interior life, but it's still a powerful and interesting bit of sociology.
A Strong, Tightly-Wound Character Study That Suffers Minimally From Its 1st-Time Director.
Cliched New York type of creepy/funny film that might only appeal to the male sports fan.
Though not without its problems, it is not a film that's easy to forget about, nor do its questions all answer themselves at once.
Big Fan stretches credulity in spots, but for the most part, it manages to keep its eye on the ball.
Though the movie isn’t much to look at, he gets a credibly dark and pathetic performance from the typically comic Oswalt.
Oswalt's performance alone makes Big Fan worth seeing.
Siegel takes us to the brink of operatic melodrama, then lands us in a tragicomic spot: a psychological landscape of alternate life and make-believe death.
Wrings pain out of heartbreaking truths, and steamrolls to an unpredictable conclusion that's suspenseful, mildly coincidental, but gut-wrenchingly sad.
Engaging truth: You may need your favorite team more than it needs you.
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?
Top CriticBig Fan, however, sticks to its guns and gives in to none of the sappiness or redemptive qualities of The Wrestler.
In his first starring role, Oswalt, a stand-up comedian whose trademark persona is part comic-book geek and part frat-house hedonist, inhabits a character who is both painfully familiar and poignantly alone.
[Siegel's] directorial debut has a real ring of truth to it, and benefits from having a terrific cast. Thanks to Oswalt, we like Paul more than we probably should.
...expected a typical obsessed sports fan flick but writer and first-time director Robert D. Siegel gives us more, and entertains too.
At times Siegel makes his film painfully brutal at other times it feels like a savage black comedy. Yet Siegel never lets Paul become a mere character type.
August 27, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Guess Halloween 2's Tomatometer!
This week at the movies, we've got the return of Michael Myers (Halloween 2, starring Malcolm McDowell and Scout Taylor-Compton), three dimensional fatalities (The Final... More...
July 12, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review 
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July 07, 2009:
Trailer Bulletin: Big Fan
Patton Oswalt has a new movie coming out, and, well...it's nothing like "Ratatouille." Watch the trailer for "Big Fan" now! More...
February 27, 2009:
Patton Oswalt Talks Big Fan, Funny People, and More
Patton Oswalt is a very funny man -- and also a capable dramatic actor, as underscored by his new film "Big Fan," which he discussed (among many other projects) in a recent... More...
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