The Fanatic

It may come to no surprise that a film directed by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, starring John Travolta as autistic movie fanatic Moose, is the worst film audiences will feast their eyes on this year.

There is little positivity to be found in this tone-deaf and flat thriller. Travolta, on a notably horrendous career slump, is nothing short of spectacularly inept and flavourless as Moose, a character that feels both exploitative and immensely degrading to watch on screen. Travolta throws everything he has into the role with a one hundred percent dedication the character, but the context of the plot is laughably inadequate with his character involved in nothing but ridiculous moments that have the tone of comedy rather than the tone of a thriller intended by the director, Durst.

Travolta's performance is one that will stoke the fires of “unironically funny”, an issue that only reinforces the whole exploitative issue surrounding the character. The result is not the multidimensional performance one would hope for nor a study of a human being with autism in this current discriminatory society, but The Fanatic is a sad and disingenuous full-blown comedic venture into how ridiculous he is.

The Fanatic is more so a comedic exploration of a person groomed and manipulated into crimes played for laughs rather than the severe nature surrounding them, without a clear indication of the repercussions. It is a film that is handled in the worst context imaginable by Fred Durst who is either intentionally crafting such in a manner of irony or, far worse, does not see the problem in his films conviction.

The Fanatic was released in the U.S. on August 30, 2019