The Fan

Directed by Edward Bianchi, The Fan follows Lauren Bacall’s Sally Ross as she and her employees are stalked by an obsessive admirer named Douglas Breen (Michael Biehn). It’s enjoyably familiar subject matter that is, at the outset, employed to entertaining effect by Bianchi, as the filmmaker, working from Priscilla Chapman and John Hartwell’s screenplay, delivers an agreeably Hitchcockian thriller that boasts several superb performances and a number of irresistible stylistic touches – including, in terms of the latter, Pino Donaggio’s larger-than-life score and Dick Bush’s compelling visuals. (There is, for example, a spellbinding overhead shot of Biehn’s character sitting amidst a sea of benches.) And while the picture benefits from its assortment of suspenseful sequences (eg Douglas pursues Sally’s secretary, Maureen Stapleton’s Belle, through an empty subway tunnel), The Fan suffers from a comparatively slack second half that builds towards an ineffective (and somewhat endless) climax – which does, in the final analysis, cement the movie’s place as a watchable endeavor that slowly-but-surely wears out its welcome.

**1/2 out of ****