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Fan, The

Paramount // R // September 24, 2002
List Price: $24.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]

Review by Ron J. Epstein | posted December 3, 2002 | E-mail the Author
The Feature:
Let me start out by saying that I'm 23 years old. I am aware of Lauren Bacall, but never really saw any other movie she's been in. The only thing I know is at one point she was, and probably still is, a very respected actress. That being said, I can only wonder what her fans thought about her starring in The Fan.

Sally Ross (Bacall) is an aged actress starring in a new musical. Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn) is her psycho, obsessed, and so on, #1 fan. But wait, he's so crazy that he doesn't compare himself to her other fans. He's better than them. But that being said, Douglas spends the majority of his day composing letters to Ms. Ross on his handy typewriter. The only responses he gets are the general form ones sent by her secretary. This upsets Douglas so much that he goes CRAZY!

Good god, I've seen tons of movies like this; and this was among the worst of the bunch. There is ZERO character development here. Douglas Breen's attacks on the friends of Sally Ross are unimaginative and forced (wait until you see what he does to her choreographer in a swimming pool with dozens of eyewitnesses).

I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that after starring in this piece of cinematic joy, I will not be stalking and writing letters to Lauren Bacall. I am considering sending letters to Naomi Watts, though.

Video:
The DVD is presented in Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1. The picture is pretty decent considering the age of the movie (20+ years). But if you're looking for a reference-quality DVD, you're barking up the wrong tree. The print has a general haze, and there are some noticeable flaws.

Audio:
The audio is presented in Dolby Digital Mono 2.0. This isn't the kind of movie that warrants a 5.1 treatment, so I'll let it slide. But overall, there's nothing special here.

Menus:
Easy to navigate, as your only three options are 'Play Movie', 'Scene Selections', and 'Captions.'

Extras:
A big, fat nothing. You know how sometimes people say there are no 'extras' on the DVD, and in actuality, there's production notes, or maybe a section that recommends other movies produced by the studio? Well, there's literally NOTHING else on this DVD. Honestly, I don't blame Paramount for not investing the time or energy into this dreck.

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