Movie Review : The Fanatic (2019)
Most people who remember being alive in the mid-nineties are actively trying to forget that at one point in their lives, they thought Limp Bizkit’s vocalist Fred Durst was cool. His band re-acquired a certain nostalgia crowd in recent years, but it will never be socially or musically pertinent again. But Durst is only 49 and he still has creative ambitions. One of them being his movie The Fanatic, which came out in theaters last September. It’s a better movie than anyone expected it to be, but man… it’s SO. FUCKING. WEIRD. I can’t even say if I ironically liked it or not.
The Fanatic tells the story of Moose (freakin’ John Travolta), a handicapped with an obsession for horror movie actor Hunter Dunbar (freakin’ Devon Sawa). After failing to meet him at a Hollywood party he illegally crashed, Moose finally gets his chance at a store signing and Dunbar turns out to be a colossal dick. That doesn’t deter ol’ Moosey from trying to get his memorabilia signed again. He finds his hero’s house via an app and gets turned down again with an unnecessary amount of hostility. The more violently he gets turned down, the more violently Moose tries…
In stalker movies, it’s usually established quick that the stalker is the bad guy and the person being stalked is the one you should root for. This is not the case here. Moose and Hunter Dunbar are being equally shitty. One is having his unhealthy desires constantly validated by his flimsy support system and the other is just inexplicably a dick to everyone. The more Moose is trying to communicate his love for him, the bigger a dick Dunbar is. Are we supposed to root for a guy who breaks into people’s houses to take photos of them asleep and post them on his Instagram later?
I was so confused. Wouldn’t it have been easier for Hunter Dunbar to be nice for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES and send Moose on his merry way?
No one’s acting like a normal human being in The Fanatic. It’s like they were self-conscious of being a character in a movie with a particular purpose. Leah (Ana Golja) is a great example. She’s a paparazzi with no connection whatsoever to Moose and yet entertains his obsession for Hunter Dunbar like it’s a goddamn hobby for her. There’s no indication whatsoever of why she’s friends with him or why she thinks it’s a good idea to point a hulking, obsessive and mentally handicapped man to his idol’s house. Leah just seems extremely remorseful in the voice over.
Why does she feel remorseful exactly? It’s not clear.
There’s this other extremely weird scene where Dunbar teaches his son (who’s 11 or 12 years old) how to brush his teeth. Not only Dunbar is obsessed with teeth brushing, but he’s extremely granular about it. At one point he’s instructing young Danny (played by 15 years old Dominic Salvatore) to spit. Really? He’s almost in middle-school and you have to be THAT precise with him about brushing his fucking teeth? The worst part in this weird aesthetic choice is that it’s oddly efficient. A guy who’s micromanaging toothbrush usage comes off as a inherently violent.
Oh yeah and there’s a character dying halfway into the movie and spends at least three or four days rotting in someone’s backyard before anyone notices. It is perhaps the strangest smoking gun I’ve ever seen in a story. Very Weekend at Bernie’s.
These weird, Wiseau-esque storytelling choices make The Fanatic way more interesting than it should be. Because the movie keeps a straight face all the way through. Whether you like him or not, Fred Durst directed a technically competent, understated thriller that doesn’t use artifice to cover its lack of substance. It’s just that the screenplay is completely fucking crazy. So, is The Fanatic good? Probably not, but it’s really difficult not to watch, like a shaky vertically filmed video on World Star Hip-Hop. It’s certainly worth watching if you’re a fan of bad movies.
5.1/10
