John Travolta is a deranged Fanatic with bad hair in Fred Durst’s dim-witted stalker thriller
Film Reviews moviereview
Cautionary tales about Hollywood as a succubus that feasts on the souls of the beautiful and naïve—or, as a voiceover at the beginning of The Fanatic so eloquently puts it, “a city of bullshitters”—are nearly as old as Los Angeles itself. As early as the 1920s, “Hollywood” was code for a type of turpitude that must be whispered about in secret, lest the young and impressionable be sullied by proxy. But despite (or perhaps because of) this moral tongue-clucking, celebrity worship continues to thrive. Most recently, it birthed “stan” culture, where obsessively commenting on your favorite star’s social-media posts and paying hundreds of dollars for a five-second interaction with them are both considered perfectly normal things to do. In short, The Fanatic is a story that’s been told before. But this time, it’s being told by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst.
Both the opening and closing credits include title cards declaring that this is “a Fred Durst film,” but neither are necessary to mark The Fanatic as his work. (This is actually Durst’s third feature film as director, after The Education Of Charlie Banks in 2007 and The Longshots in 2008.) Whether Durst deserves his status as a pop-cultural punching bag is a matter of personal taste, but he isn’t helping by writing a scene into The Fanatic where Devon Sawa asks his son, “You like Limp Bizkit? I used to listen to this back in the day, this is hot” while driving around the Hollywood Hills (really Birmingham, Alabama) in a convertible. Bizkit blaring in the background, they zip around a corner and almost run over John Travolta, who’s standing in the middle of the road sporting a haircut that might appear cool and edgy on a 25-year-old woman, but just looks like a rat pelt glued to his 65-year-old head. Sawa gets out of the car to scream at Travolta, veins bulging out of his red face. The older man blubbers like a little boy, his childishness enhanced by his purple backpack covered in enamel pins.
Durst says The Fanatic is a remake of the 2016 Indian film Fan, but the “obsessive fan gets too close” storyline has been done so many times that the elevator pitch was probably something along the lines of, “Taxi Driver meets Misery on Hollywood Boulevard.” Travolta, whose character goes by the name “Moose” and lives in a basement strewn with film memorabilia, even delivers a series of Travis Bickle-esque monologues to his mirror. Moose lives with an unnamed condition that feeds his obsession with movies and leaves him vulnerable to scammers—either an intellectual disability, something on the autism spectrum, or both. It’s hard to tell specifically, given that Travolta’s performance is constructed entirely out of loud printed shirts and acting tics lifted from a community-theater production of Of Mice And Men. Our movie-mad Lennie’s opening line: “I can’t talk too long, I gotta poo.”
Moose is lucky. Although—as the voiceover states—L.A. feeds upon the innocent, he has a few friends looking out for him. Sympathetic comics-shop owner Todd (Jacob Grodnik) sells him merchandise at a discount, and lets him cut in line at a book signing. Security guard Dick (Kenneth Farmer) makes sure that the other street performers on Hollywood Boulevard aren’t too mean to him. (Moose’s schtick is dressing up as a British “bobby,” complete with handlebar mustache and godawful accent.) Most significantly, freelance paparazzo Leah (Ana Golja) humors Moose’s obsession with horror star Hunter Dunbar (Sawa, who relevantly played the Stan in Eminem’s video for the song, way back in 2000) by sneaking the fan into the cast party for Dunbar’s latest project. Dunbar isn’t there, of course. So as a salve for Moose’s disappointment, Leah shows him an app she uses in her work that lists the home addresses of famous people—including his beloved Dunbar.
There are a few creepy moments in The Fanatic, particularly in the scenes where Moose tiptoes around the sleeping Dunbar’s house á la the Manson Family’s infamous “creepy crawls.” But mostly, the action, while bloodier than one might expect, is as goofy and dim-witted as the dialogue. (It’s the kind of movie where people wait for their attacker to reload before attempting to grab the gun from their hands.) So underlit that it’s often difficult to see what’s happening, The Fanatic is also peppered with cheap-looking camcorder footage and other flashy, witless tricks. At one point, Durst switches mid-scene to a fish-eye lens and purple camera filter, turning a dramatic dialogue scene into an early ’90s Hole video for about 30 seconds.
It’s not necessary to ask whether Durst is trying to make some kind of commentary on fans and celebrity culture. He says as much, bookending the film with quotes on the subject from our two lead characters. (He also lets the same credits roll twice, at the beginning and end of the film, lest you forget who’s responsible for all of this.) Whether Durst has anything deeper to say than “That’s fucked up, bro” is for wiser and more stoned heads than these to decide. Cinephiles might get a chuckle or two from in-jokes like Moose’s matter-of-fact review of the Maniac movies and the scene where he tunelessly sings “stuck in the middle, stuck in the middle,” while dousing Dunbar with a clear liquid from a gasoline can. But mostly, you’d be better off taking the hour and a half and sticking it up your… yeah.
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Just so we’re clear a “D” means “see it immediately and bask in how terrible it is”, right?
“Fred Durst has directed a D grade movie” is pretty much code for I need to see this as soon as possible.
“Fred Durst directs—”“TO THE MULTIPLEX!”
Novice.
You hit the liquor store first, and put on your jacket with the big pockets.
You are gonna need the space for libations, watching a Durst flick.
This needs pride of place at the Uwe Boll Film Feastival.
The last time I watched Alone in the Dark I foisted it on some friends of mine who were unaware of Uwe Boll and were looking to get drunk. About twenty minutes in, one of them said, “I don’t see why you make fun of this movie so much – it’s not great, but it’s fine.” Flash forward an hour, and he said, “I can’t put my finger on it – this looks like a regular movie, but everything is a little off. It’s just missing some piece that normal movies have.” Which is pretty much the best description of D-grade junk that I’ve ever heard.
He really said that about Alone in the Dark 20 minutes in. If I recall the opening crawl is like the first 10 minutes of that movie
No D means wait for cable and laugh it at home. F is the must see disaster.
D is, of course, the Gentleman’s F. (Or Gentlewoman’s, in this case.)
It’s time for
D, as in Do yourself a theater and get your tickets today!
D for Durst, baby!
I had no idea that this is Durst’s 3rd film he directed. In his 2nd one he directed Ice Cube! His first one actually looks interesting and stars Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Ritter and Sebastian Stan but I doubt I’ll ever get around to watching it.
I watched that a few years ago. I remember pretty much nothing about it other than it being a much better than I was expecting.
His previous two films fall squarely into “perfectly passable”; I wouldn’t suggest you go out of your way to see them, but they at least had a reasonable level of competency that apparently this film lacks.
Now where could they have thought of that haircut?
Never… go full Travolta. John Travolta, went full Travolta. Went home empty handed.
“John Travolta is a deranged fanatic with bad hair—”Yes.Oh, wait, there’s more to the headline?
“I went full method to get into the role of Moose. I changed nothing about my day-to-day life.”
John Travolta is a deranged Fanatic with bad hair in Fred Durst’s dim-witted stalker thrillerSo it’s a documentary?
Katie you’re far too nice to be writing about shit movies. You should pass these off to the folks who will just spend the entire review ripping into trash like this.
Imagine Dowd setting up camp on this one. There would be blood.
Dowd’s too much of a loose cannon. He’d probably give it a positive review just to mess with us.
Ignatiy in the conservatory with a bottle of Stolichnaya, then.
Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, in inexplicably thick Russian accent: “In my country, you would be shot for making film this bad.”
Film shoots YOU!
Voiced by the ghost of Paul Frees.
This needs the Ignatiy treatment, big time!
Da!
Ignatiy was my first thought as well. Particularly because I believe Travolta has descended to the Steven Segal level of actor, and has thus earned IV’s wrath.
I find it amusing that you think a review where I suggest you’d be better off playing with your own asshole for an hour and a half to be “too nice.” Thanks though! I’m a ray of goddamn sunshine!!!!!
Damn, take it easy, Hitler. He’s only a boy.
I’ll give you that one.
Im surprised that dude (you know it’s a dude) didn’t just tell you to smile more.
For the record, Katie, I thoroughly enjoyed your review and think it’s shitty to say someone else should’ve written it. As for patronizing crap like saying you’re too nice, MC Escher can shove it up his… yeah.
Was it a good idea to make a mentally disabled man the villain of a horror movie, perhaps even someone with autism? I got 20 bucks that says Fred Durst is an anti-vaxxer.
It’s never a good idea to let Fred Durst make anything that resembles art.
The really fucked up thing is, wasn’t Travolta’s son autistic?
which i think is a sin in Scientology
Please correct me if I’m wrong (no, really – PLEASE somebody correct me), but didn’t Jett Travolta die because the Travoltas refused to accept that he had autism and wouldn’t treat it properly?Again, if I’m wrong, tell me. I want nothing more than to be wrong about something as inherently pitch-black as that.
I believe he died of seizures from complications from another condition he had. But if I recall there was something about them not treating any of his conditions properly and attributing them to Scientologist bullshit. This whole movie sickens me. My son is on the spectrum and this sorta shit shouldn’t be getting made in 2019.
Jett Travolta suffered a seizure. He was said to have had Kawasaki Disease as a child that had long term effects on him. While I do think he likely had some type of intellectual disorder and there has been sound bites from both Travolta and his wife about their choice of treatment for Jett following his bought of Kawasakis, there has been nothing truly compelling to suggest he didn’t die of a seizure in a bath tub and I’m not sure that seizures are ever a side effect of autism.
There are so many layers of weird and terrible to peel back off this particularly smelly onion.
Yes and no. Depends on if you are a scientologist or not.
I think it might have been a closely guarded secret, and then Kelly Preston’s take on vaccinations, and the actual cause of death, are all…
It’s a fucking bummer man.
Maybe while he was alive, but I’m pretty sure Kelly Preston was on Dr. Oz or The Doctors (one of them shows) and said he was autistic.
I only saw it because it was playing in a waiting room. That needs to be stressed, I do not actively seek out those types of shows.
Supposedly the one who died some time ago was, poor kid.
evil psychos should only be the good guys in films. wouldn’t want to offend evil psychos.
Was it a good idea to make a mentally disabled man direct a horror movie?
Mining mental illnesses and intellectual disabilities for cheap sentiment has been Hollywood’s MO for decades, and it’s gross as shit. I get the feeling these are really desirable roles for big actors to show off their chops, which is also gross as shit. That said, if this gross, exploitative shit is going to persist (which it will), the best place for it is dumb, low-quality genre movies where it’s properly detached from reality and where it isn’t won’t earn glowing comparisons to fucking Rain Man. As an aside, how great is it that John Travolta is basically doing the touring-company version of a beloved Hollywood veteran? He’s playing a crime boss, just like Marlon Brando, only it’s in Gotti. He’s playing a disabled guy with a secret, just like Dustin Hoffman or Sean Penn, only it’s in a Fred Durst movie.
He’ll go on to do his wacky take on the Joker, then he’ll be Steve Jobs, then Walt Disney, then Mister Rogers….
Next he’ll play a repentant Nazi war criminal. In a film directed by Michael Bay.
Have you not seen Texas Chainsaw?
Well, sure, but that was 45 years ago, and Leatherface is not at all a 1:1 comparison with whatever the hell Travolta is supposed to be in this movie. There’s a difference between a guy on the autistic spectrum who can’t separate fantasy from reality and turns to violent behavior because of it, and a guy who wears a mask of human skin and cuts people up with a chainsaw. Surely we’re able to create a mentally disturbed villain that you can maybe sorta sympathize with with a bit more nuance by now. This thing sounds like it was written in an hour.
“Surely we’re able to create a mentally disturbed villain that you can maybe sorta sympathize with with a bit more nuance by now.”
Why is that a prerequisite? I have no interest in defending what appears to be a terrible movie, but I think you’re allowed to have mentally disabled villains. We’ve had plenty of positive depictions of mentally disabled people, so it’s fair to have them be villains as well on occasion.
It’s not a prerequisite, and this certainly isn’t the only mentally disturbed villain we’ve had since Leatherface. But sometimes you want a villain with a little more depth and character than a guy with a human skin mask and a chainsaw. Most times, actually.
For sure. I love me a good nuanced villain. Captain Vidal in Pan’s Labyrinth? Fucking great. But I think Leatherface is reasonably iconic, and my overall point was more that you could have an effective mentally disturbed or disabled villain (even if this one is not)
Of course you can, and we’ve got piles of them in the past. Hannibal Lecter is who comes to mind for me. He’s nuts and clearly a villain, but there’s also a part of him that you like. The true mark of a good villain.
Vidal stabbed a guy to death with a beer bottle to the face in the first third of the film.
Actually he bludgeoned, not stabbed, him NEARLY to death with a beer bottle and then finished him off with a gunshot.
But your point is?
Never go full Fred Durst.
I think we need a drive-in midnite movie double feature of this and Verotika. https://film.avclub.com/holy-hell-glenn-danzig-mightve-just-made-the-room-of-h-1835503250
/looks at header image, marches in to closet and throws out almost all of my clothes
Sir, this is a TJ Maxx.
Welcome to Costco, I love you.
No love for The Buckle?
I don’t know what that is.
The Buckle is a mall based clothing store for people who like all over print graphic tees and boot cut pre-ripped jeans. So really, really cool people. Also fitted hats with obnoxious designs on them.
Forrest Durst
“Nookie is as Nookie does, sir.”
“Life is like a box of chocolate starfish and hot dog-flavored water….”
Seeing that picture and the words “Fred Durst directed”, I am stunned this didn’t get an F. I kinda want to see it now just to see how it managed to scrap itself up to a D
D for Durst
Failed Dursties
Which earns you CancerDURST.
What’s incredibly odd, is that Mr. Travolta is actually portraying John Gotti, AGAIN!
You Gotti be kidding me!
Whether Durst deserves his status as a pop-cultural punching bag is a matter of personal tasteNo, he deserves every ounce of it. Trust me, I’m a scientist.
It’s like asking whether the moles in Whack-A-Mole deserve to be whacked. It’s literally the whole reason they exist. And they keep popping out of those goddamn holes.
I’ve been a fan of many bands/performers who seem unfairly maligned, and Fred Durst is NOT unfairly maligned. It reminds me of when Beavis and Butthead were watching a Vanilla Ice video, and Butthead says (paraphrasing from memory), “You know, everyone’s always putting this guy down and saying he sucks and stuff, but… this time everyone’s right.”
*sees D Grade*
“I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THISSSSSSSSS!!!!!!”
Man, it’d be awesome if us people on the autistic spectrum got representation in movies outside of “ambiguously-disordered villain” or “this person is trying to win an Oscar”.
I humbly offer you Ben Afleck’s character in The Accountant. Then I apologize for pretending that, just because he technically falls outside of the categories you listed, that somehow makes it better.
That is probably the most irritating performance I have ever seen.
The Blue Ranger in the Power Rangers movie reboot was autistic, so there’s some progress (fairly certain, but not positive, that’s the first depiction of a superhero with autism in film or comics).
That depends on whether Gary on Alphas counts as a superhero. There was never a costume, but Gary had autism and could also read and manipulate electromagnetic waves. Other characters had low-grade superhuman powers, like strength, agility, heightened senses, and mind control at about the same levels as the characters in the Marvel Defenders series.Edit: Now I see you wrote “film or comics,” so you may have already counted Alphas.Second Edit: Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic self-diagnosed as autistic, but that was a 2012 ret-con.
You have to go to TV if you want the good representation, by which I mean socially awkward genius profiler on procedural serial killer show.
Bazinga!
I admittedly haven’t seen it in about a decade, but I remember Mozart and the Whale as fairly decent, balanced representation, that managed to showcase autism as a spectrum, and treated its characters as human beings.Also, from TV, I’ll happily claim Abed from Community as one of our own.
Does Abed from community count? Cuz he was the best one out of all of them..
It’s probably not much worse than most of the big budget theater releases.
Wait…that Fred Durst?!
A deranged fanatic with bad hair? Do I have to say the name of the Voldemort level villain we have in real life that that description fits?
Boris? No, Trump? Kim?Putin’s hair ain’t great.
Yout know… you’re right. There is a bumper crop of real life supervillains with bad hair.Could all of this be fixed by deploying a platoon of hair stylusts?
Who gave Durst the cash to make a movie. Seriously who thought this was a good idea? Who!
I’m just gonna assume that the executive producer credit goes to a literal line of coke.
You guessed it… Frank Stallone.
You beat me to it, you sonofabitch.
“You beat me to it, you sonofabitch………………………………………………………………………………………………………….OF COCK!”
That sweet sonofabitch of cock sound.
When you someone eat it that sweet sonofabitch OF COCK sound.
EVERY TIME I SEE WHEN YOU SOMEONE EAT IT THAT SWEET SONOFABITCH OF COCK SOUND I FAP!
EVERY TIME I SEE WHEN YOU SOMEONE EAT IT THAT SWEET SONOFABITCH OF COCK SOUND I FAP WITH YOU GUESSED IT… FRANK STALLONE
And the circle is complete.
He should just take the dignified path to real estate ala Vanilla Ice.
Many years ago, I had a Playboy that had a pictorial and interview with Jaime Bergman who apparently briefly dated Durst. Apparently he had a habit of going into extremely expensive restaurants, like Wolfgang Puck (the Beverly Hills one) or Nobu, ordering nearly everything on the menu, and just eating a bite of each one.So, no matter how much you think he’s an asshole, chances are he sucks even more
Wow, I remember that. I can’t believe I actually read the interview! Damn Bergman was hot, it might be time to dig out the old Son of the Beach DVDs.
So if Spaceballs 2 becomes a thing, we can expect a role for Durst?
So you’re the guy who gets Playboy for the articles!
Nathan Rabin reviewed a book by Karrine Steffans where she tells a similar story about Durst, but it was at a P.F. Chang or something like that. I can’t find the article, because AV Club treats its pre-Kinja articles like a pile of old refuse.
The only way I can ever find old AVC articles is to go to Google and do a site-specific search. And in this case, it’s still a crapshoot whether Kinja will let the URL through.https://www.avclub.com/the-silly-little-show-biz-book-club-2-karrine-steffan-1798213941
Here ‘tis:https://www.avclub.com/the-silly-little-show-biz-book-club-2-karrine-steffan-1798213941
Did he at least tip well?
Fred Durst? Of Limp Bizkit? He’s a director? 2019, that’s impressive new form of sucking. (I see that he allegedly directed before but… come on.) Also, the fact that he worked with Travolta says everything about both of them.
travolta looks like that guy that stalked tiffany, who for some bizarre reason allows him to be around her now.
‘Durst says The Fanatic is a remake of the 2016 Indian film Fan’. Interesting, since Fan was that incredibly rare beast, a Shah Rukh Khan film which utterly bombed at the Bollywood box-office, the self-proclaimed King Khan’s biggest flop in years, hustled out of cinemas after the first few days. Imagine Tom Cruise’s next Mission: Impossible pic utterly crashing and burning, that’s the sort of shock it was. And if you want another vicious take on this – https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/fanatic-1235140
Devon Sawa was a great “Stan” in the “Stan” video.
I’ll wait for the Criterion Edition.
I feel like John Travolta and Fred Durst are just the perfect combination these days, like peanut butter made of sawdust paired with petroleum jelly.
Hey, don’t knock ersatz PB&J, it helped us win the war!
John Travolta is a deranged
John Travolta looks like every nerdy male you see/read in a hentai.
2 Dursts 1 Cup
What did anyone do to deserve this?
I didn’t think a facial expression could be a hate crime but then I zoomed in on Travolta in the header.
You know, Katie, you’re giving Fred Durst a lot of shit for referencing Limp Bizkit in his own movie, but you have to acknowledge the pressure he’s been under from every angle—cinephiles, critics, angel investors, pescatarians, the radical left, NuMetal fans, AMC’s partners in the beverage industry, competitive CrossFitters, Buckethhead, the Local 372 Tuscaloosa Pipefitter’s Union, and most of the big studios—to finally start the world-building needed to prop up the Limp Bizkit Cinematic Universe. After teasing us with it in The Longshots, I’m very satisfied to see that he’s diving head-first into the LBCU. And with such… fearless bravado.
I look forward to the.origin stories of Korn, Kid Rock, Linkin Park, Papa Roach, Staind and P.O.D. Kid: RagnaRockNu Metalvengers: Infinity KornPapa Roach And The WaspStaind: So Far Away From Home P.O.D: Age Of The Youth Of The NationLinkin Park: In The Endgame (It Doesn’t Even Matter)
John Travolta is a deranged fanatic with bad hair.Katie, it looks like you accidentally combined the headline with the start of another sentence about some new movie.
Travolta should be wearing a blinking neon sign that says, “I’M ACTING.”
Not being familiar with that kind of music all that much, I initially thought upon seeing the header image that it was a movie about Robert Durst (he of bathroom confession fame), with Travolta doing a Fred Armisen impression.
Insipid Goes West
Watched it this morning. Very forgettable shite