A film directed by Fred Durst, member of the band Limp Bizkit, based on an anecdote from his own life and which in Spain went directly to platforms
“I’m very proud of this film and very proud of this performance. It is one of the acting jobs that I have probably enjoyed more than most,” said veteran performer John Travolta in an interview with the media. Awards Daily last 2020 about one of his then most recent films. However, while for the actor Pulp Fiction, Face to face and Saturday night Fever among many Fanatic It was an interesting experience in his career with which he felt very fulfilled, in the eyes of critics and the public it is one of his worst films.
This is demonstrated by its more than improvable average score of 14% from criticswhile viewers, with 31% – both data from the reviews portal Rotten Tomatoes-they don’t make it much better.
If the history of cinema has taught us anything, it is that Neither having an inflated budget nor having a top-level star are a guarantee of success for any project. And so it happened with the film directed by Fred Durst, best known for being one of the members of the famous music band Limp Bizkit, who, Despite having Travolta as the main attraction, it was not well received either critically or at the box office.
In fact, its run in theaters in the United States was limited and its distribution was directly on demand. In Spain, in fact, the film was released as part of the Amazon Prime Video catalog in 2022, three years after its passage through movie theaters.. Likewise, despite being a limited release, the collection of Fanatic on the big screen was especially low: $3,153.
Starring, in addition to Travolta, Devon Sawa, a teenage idol from the 90s-2000s, based on a real anecdote from Durst’s own life, Fanatic is the story of Moose, a man with autism who works as a street musician whose great passion is action movies. Additionally, Moose has an unusual and truly unhealthy admiration for an actor, Hunter Dunbar (Sawa), with whom he becomes completely obsessed. As his fanaticism grows stronger, the protagonist begins to harass the star to the point of trying to destroy his life.
Despite the bad reviews, Travolta has always defended this project, saying that “playing Moose has been a real pleasure.” In the aforementioned interview, the veteran actor, who is now 70 years old, makes his opinion very clear: to taste, the colors. “We’ve all disagreed with very popular movies and agreed with smaller, less popular movies, or vice versa. So I think it’s really the magic of art. You have the right to interpret. I’m sure there are movies that you love and you can’t understand why your best friend doesn’t,” he explained.
“Years ago, [la crítica del New York Times] Janet Maslin taught me a lesson,” Travolta recalled. “She said, ‘I hope our opinions never affect you too much, because that’s all they are, John.’ I was 23 years old when she told me this. She told me to take opinions with caution if they were not pleasant and use those that were pleasant according to your needs or desires.” She has always carried that advice with her and applies it to every project she does, even if it is small: “We have the right to believe our own views on things and take them as far as we want.”
