THE FAN (38)

Directed by: Tony Scott

Starring: Robert de Niro, Wesley Snipes, Ellen Barkin, Benicio del Toro

The Pitch: A psychotic baseball fan turns against the star player he's obsessed with when he thinks his idol has "betrayed" the game.

Theo Sez: A film that takes leave of its senses right before your very eyes, making for a queasily compulsive, road-accident kind of entertainment. The first 45 minutes or so are actually - for those not allergic to Scott's overheated style - a lot of fun, with a couple of smart digs at the emotional immaturity of Homo Let'splaysomeballus, the sports-obsessed male, plus the hesitant beginnings (still better than nothing) of a metaphor linking baseball and fatherhood (helped immeasurably by the child actor playing de Niro's son, a big-eyed squirrel who looks exactly like a prepubescent John Cusack). Then the plot starts and the whole movie just collapses, apparently too bored by the mere thought of yet another psycho movie to even go through the motions of caring about plausibility, motivation or any of the other little things that make the difference between a movie and the visual equivalent of the phone-book. By the time de Niro's psychotic baseball fan, hidden somewhere in the stadium during the big game, turns out (how? why?) to be disguised as the umpire you know you're watching the best Bad Movie since COLOR OF NIGHT two years ago. A very guilty pleasure.