The Fanatic

Smoke something strong and it's actually quite funny

I know this will be ignored. But I hope it doesn't.

Imagine this: John Travolta still as Moose.

Fred Durst as the paparazzi girl.

Nicolas Cage as the Final Destination actor.

Please.

I BEG you to think about it.

Some movies really need the strangeness of The Nic. And, well... if some people don't agree with this statement, this disaster is here to prove them wrong.

Even the thought of this possibility makes me rase my rating from a 2 to a 3.

It's hard to find words to describe The Fanatic, since everyone, who saw the movie already said everything that needed to be said about it. It's a very bizarre movie with so many things that are very weak or very bad and you can tell that no one didn't had any passion while making it. Every choice that they did was the wrong one. This is probably John Travolta's lowest point that he has been in his entire career and gives the worst performance that i've seen this year.

The story was so horribly written that i was questioning everything that was happening from the beginning to the end. The way John Travolta's character was written and portrayed in the movie was very bad and the character Hunter Dunbar was so rude throughout the whole movie he doesn't have a reason to treat the main character like that. Both characters do so many things that are very stupid and weird. The movie failed at almost everything and i had a hard time finding positives, but it was impossible and unfortunately it's one of the worst movies of the year.

This has to be one of the greatest pieces of "so bad it's good" cinema in a while. If you're fans of "The room" , "Birdemic", "showgirls" and Neil Breen, you will surley enjoy this piece of confusing "mishmash" of a movie, with undeveloped bunch of pointless charecters, with unclear motives and charecteristics, strange editing, very aqward dialogues and the hair. Most of all I just don't get the hair. Just becaouse someone is Autistic or suffers from a developmental disability, doesn't mean he cuts his hair with a lawn mower. Who cares, the whole things is just super funny. Also funny: all the positive reviews here posted by sientologists.

Make sure you watch it with good friends and plenty od sarcasm.

Naturally, I was anticipating this indie, because I love it when the good old guys take on odd and crazy roles nowadays - no sarcasm whatsoever. It was concerning to see the value of metascore and user reviews, but, nevertheless, I found "The Fanatic" to be quite alright. Let me elaborate.

I have to say I believe that my 6/10 is stemming out partially from a purely subjective viewpoint - objectively it's probably barely average. What I got from "The Fanatic" was good and pulpy fun, offering us nothing new or original plot-wise, but moving at a steady pace and using Travolta as its main attraction. Mad props to John Travolta, the role of a above 40 years old mentally challenged hardcore horror fan & fanatic memorabilia collector was filled from bottom up with Travolta attacking the role with a sure hand. Like, sue me, but I thought it's a great, truly effortful performance. The fanatic making us the fanatics out here. All jokes aside, it was Travoltas performance that kept this movie above the water & that's arguably a fact. From a technical standpoint "The Fanatic" doesn't excel much, but in no way it's below average regarding the cinematography & editing. To be honest, stylistically there were a few cool elements, like the occasional time-lapse drawings with the sharp violin original score pieces. The plot is pretty straight forward & gets wobbly towards the end, where I saw the reason for why a lot of people called out the director for hating mentally challenged people. I'm pretty sure those accusations are not correct. While the ending is hard to decipher, translate the point of it (if there's any), I don't feel like it's a completely tasteless ending. It's different, which is what we, the audience, ask a lot for.

To sum it up, "The Fanatic" is miles form masterpiece, but it's a solid entertainment with it's emotional or extremely awkward (in a good way) moments, and, most of all, with John Travolta who's doing the best he can. My rating: 6/10.