Everything in Gil Renard’s (Robert DeNiro) life is going wrong. His ex-wife Ellen (Patti D’Arbanville) has a restraining order against him. He’s not allowed to see his son Richie (Andrew J. Ferchland). He’s lost his job as a knife salesman at the very company that sells the knives his father created. The only good thing in his existence is the San Francisco Giants and his favorite player Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes), who just signed a $40 million dollar contract.

But now Bobby is in a slump.

And Gil can’t have that.

One of the ways that he helps is by getting Bobby the jersey number he wants, 11, killing rival Juan Primo (Benicio del Toro). That helps his favorite player play better. But he’s lost his love for the game, a fact he reveals to Renard after the strange man saves his son Sean (Brandon Hammond) from drowning. Soon enough, he’s kidnapped the child and will only return him if Bobby hits a home run and dedicates it to him.

Based on The Fan by Peter Abrahams, this was directed by Tony Scott and written by Phoef Sutton. There are also great character roles for John Leguizamo and Ellen Barkin.

Cal Ripkin Jr. was Snipes’ hitting coach for this film and has said that De Niro creeped him out. When they met, he was listening to tapes of Robert Bardo, the man who stalked and killed Rebecca Schaefer. One would imagine that Snipes already knew how to play baseball, as he was Willie Mays Hayes in Major League.

In case you wondered, this is not as good as The Fan with Lauren Bacall and the German groupie madness Der Fan.

You can get the Mill Creek release of The Fan from Deep Discount.