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Review: Big Fan

Run-of-the-mill, cheap laughs
By PETER KEOUGH  |  September 16, 2009
2.0 2.0 Stars

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"He's another Martin Scorsese!" crows mom when her son screens an awful ad for his ambulance-chasing law firm in this unimpressive debut from Robert Siegel (screenwriter of The Wrestler). The Scorsese film Siegel himself draws from is The King ofComedy.

His Rupert Pupkin is Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt), the above-mentioned lawyer's brother and the New York Giants fan of the title. A regular caller on a late-night sports talk-radio show, he phones in scripted rants that are interrupted by his mom in the next room telling him to shut up and go to bed.

Paul has a crush on one of the team's defensive backs, and when he and a pal follow the guy to a strip joint, their adventure ends badly. The film itself ends pretty well, but only after a run-of-the-mill start that gets cheap laughs out of funny clothes and stupid people from Staten Island.

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