The Fanatic is quite bad, I don't think anyone is really going to stand up and make a case for it being a misunderstood modern classic, but it's nowhere near as bad as many have tried to make out. I'd also have to say that it has real moments where it tries to do something unexpected and interesting, especially when you think of the movies it seems to be following, films that have the same initial idea but take the characters down a much different road.
Travolta is Moose, a huge film fan who also has some clear mental health issues. If you encountered him in any social setting then you'd immediately be able to guess that he was somewhere on the autism spectrum that made him unable to pick up on standard social cues and body language. His favourite actor is Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa), and it looks like Moose is about to be very happy as he is all set to get Dunbar's autograph on an expensive prop. But events conspire to stop that from happening, which leads to Moose planning some way to encounter Dunbar and take up one minute of his time. Every encounter just ends up making Dunbar angrier, however, and makes Moose look more and more like a stalker, which is exactly what his friend, Leah (Ana Golja), warned him about.
Directed by Fred Durst, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Dave Bekerman (his first feature), The Fanatic is an uneven mix of right and wrong. The weird thing is that sometimes the wrong stuff doesn't seem so wrong as the film plays out in a surprisingly effective third act. Okay, Travolta's performance is a consistently bold one, for better or for worse, and the dialogue throughout can be painfully clunky, but the shading of the two characters who provide the heart of the picture, the ungrateful star and the fan being too invasive, is really well done, and allows for moments in which the film lays bare the problematic paradox at the heart of the relationship. There's usually a divide, and lines should be kept between public personas and their personal lives, but it's impossible to deny that people who become famous are only lifted to, and kept in, their position through fans.
I'm still really trying to decide what I think about Travolta's turn here. It's sometimes terrible, especially in the scenes that show him practicing his street artist routine as a British policeman, but sometimes surprisingly spot on. He has no filter, and no real sense of how others may be feeling as he stomps around and pursues something that he has set as some symbolic pinnacle of his own happiness. Sawa is great, and the fact that his character may seem like a stereotypical asshole who just happens to be a movie star feeds very much into the main points that the film is making. Moose is surrounded by those kinds of characters elsewhere (Todd and Slim, played by Jacob Grodnik and James Paxton), but he doesn't give them any respect because he can see them for what they are when they aren't covered by the dazzling cloak of stardom. And Golja does well as a friend who makes some strange choices, or glaring errors, and then has to simply bide her time elsewhere until she is ever needed again, if ever.
I started this review without my final thoughts being fully formed. That happens sometimes. Writing down my reaction to various elements in the film can help me decide on where I want to place it in any basic rating system. There are things working against this. The score isn't great, the Limp Bizkit song being pointed out as it appears on the soundtrack, and the whole thing is visually flat and messy.
It's got something though. Not enough to make it worth a rewatch, or to rate it as something good (cinematically), but certainly something to save it from being talked about as one of the worst things you could ever watch. For that reason, I end up rating it bang in the middle.
5/10
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