Stealth Entertainment: Big Stan
By Scott Lumley
July 6, 2009
Yet while I mock Schneider here, I have to admit this film had me laughing a lot, and pretty hard in some cases. The story doesn't really center on prison rape. It's actually aimed at Stan's desperate attempts to avoid becoming a victim of prison rape. That's a fine distinction, but an important one. After Stan learns that he's about to become a goldfish in a shark tank, he takes the tips given to him by the convict he interviewed and starts applying them. He goes out and gets some "ink" that will make him less appealing. He tries to take self defense courses. He gets his wife Mindy (Played by House veteran Jennifer Morrison as a clueless trophy wife) to help him prepare for the possibility of a prison assault with a bedroom prosthetic.
None of this (with the possible exception of a rectal tattoo running joke) is very effective. Stan even suffers the indignity of being beaten up by a smaller man at a self defense course and is tossed out of the class and into the street. Of course, that turns out to be his salvation, because as he is laying there in the gutter, he gains the attention of the "Master" (David Carradine), who in turn agrees to train Stan.
Stan's training is long, rigorous and painful, but in six months the master turns tapioca into steel and pronounces Stan ready to serve his time. Stan enters prison, is processed for entry by the guards and proceeds to pick a fight with the largest, most threatening predator in the prison, played by MMA monster Bob Sapp. (For those of you that don't know, Bob Sapp is a 6'4" 325 pound former pro football player who looks like he was carved out of steel.) I won't ruin how that turns out for everybody, but I will say that whoever did the fight choreography in this movie did a spectacular job. During some of the less than absurd fight scenes I sat there believing that Schneider could in fact kick my ass. Roger Ebert may need to be cautious here.
Unfortunately, the movie loses a little steam in the second half. Stan's stay in prison is far less exciting or humorous than his actual arrival, and there are some sub plots that develop but none of them match up to the initial premise of a scared little con man trying to remove himself from the prison food chain. So while the first two-thirds of the film were fairly dynamic and frequently very funny, the last third devolves into typical Hollywood laziness. The film goes for the required happy ending and it feels really forced. It was actually very disappointing that film as daring as this one in subject matter went the route that it did. The expected battle at the end of the film between Stan and his arch rival is well done and funny, but it's not enough to carry the film to a satisfying conclusion.
Look, this is not a perfect film. This is not Oscar material. It's a Rob Schneider film, for crying out loud. What it is, however, is frequently very funny or very violent. There are some really good jokes in this film before it tails off and when it isn't funny there's a fight scene thrown in to keep things flowing. The movie flows quite well in the first two thirds and there are a couple of memorable scenes here that you will want to share with your friends.
Big Stan is what I call stupid entertainment. It's not thought-provoking, but it is funny. It's violent but not grotesquely so. The movie has a disturbing premise but manages to find ways to laugh at it and make jokes with it, even at the risk of being tasteless. I'm not certain you'll want to buy this one and ad it to your collection, but if it does show up in your video store or on cable you can give this a watch and feel assured that this is in fact some disposable comedy entertainment.
Especially the tattoo joke. Watch it, you'll see.
Continued:
1
2
Print this column
