For the Chicago skyscraper nicknamed “Big Stan”, see Aon Center (Chicago).
Big Stan is a 2007 American martial arts prison comedy film starring, produced, and directed by Rob Schneider in his directorial debut[2] with help from his company From Out of Nowhere Productions. The rest of the cast includes Jennifer Morrison, Scott Wilson, Henry Gibson, Richard Kind, Sally Kirkland, Jackson Rathbone, M. Emmet Walsh, Dan Haggerty, and David Carradine. It tells the story of a real estate con artist who gets sentenced to three years in prison and spends the six months beforehand getting trained by a martial arts guru to survive in prison. This film was Gibson’s final role before his death in 2009.
| Big Stan | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Rob Schneider |
| Written by | Josh Lieb |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Victor Hammer |
| Edited by | Richard Halsey |
| Music by | John Hunter John Debney (themes) |
| Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Home Entertainment |
| Release dates |
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| Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $7.5 million |
| Box office | $8.7 million[1] |
Although released in some markets during the fall of 2008, it was released straight to DVD in the United States on March 24, 2009. It debuted at number 17 on the DVD rental charts of March 23–30, 2009.
Contents
Plot
Stan Minton is a wealthy real estate con artist, married to Mindy. One day, he is arrested for conning elderly people out of their savings. His lawyer Mal defends him at the trial presided over by Judge Perry. The jury’s forewoman reads the guilty verdict and the sentencing will be the following day.
While talking with Stan, Mal refuses to bribe Judge Perry since he does not practice that kind of law and tells Stan that any shyster on the street would do it for him. Inspired by the bench advertisement outside, Stan fires Mal from the case and hires Lew Popper as a replacement for the sentencing. Judge Perry sentences Stan to three years at the Oaksburg Correctional Facility while giving him six months to reorganize the charity that Stan established to teach music to mentally disabled children.
As he can’t go on a permanent vacation to Brazil on Lew’s advice due to his assets being frozen, Stan gets drunk and visits a biker bar where he has the fear of jailhouse rape instilled in him by a biker ex con that strains his marriage to Mindy. This leads him to hire the mysterious guru known as The Master, who helps transform him into a martial arts expert.
During his incarceration, Stan befriends an elderly inmate named Larry who is serving a life sentence for murdering his partner. Stan also encounters a sympathetic prison guard named Bullard and learns more about the cliques and gang activities inside the prison. He then uses his new-found skills to bring peace and harmony to the prison yard by intimidating his fellow inmates like Big Raymond into preventing them from harming each other. With this, peace is restored in Oaksburg and Stan gains their respect, eventually becoming their leader.
However, the corrupt warden Gasque has plans to force the prison’s closure with a riot and sell off the property. Stan helps him with the real estate aspects in exchange for early parole. However, his peacemaking efforts threaten the warden’s plan for a riot and he is persuaded to bring back violence.
In a last minute attack of conscience, he deliberately blows the parole hearing to rush back and prevent the deaths of his fellow inmates only to discover that his message of peace has sunk in and the prisoners are dancing instead of fighting. Warden Gasque orders the guards to open fire on the dancing men. When they refuse, he grabs a gun in front of the board of governors and shoots wildly. Warden Gasque attempts to shoot Stan, but he is stopped by Mindy and the Master, who had sneaked in. Stan was surprised that the Master had trained Mindy during his incarceration when he thought they were having an affair during an earlier conjugal.
Three years later, Stan leaves the prison where Bullard had been sworn in as the new warden of Oaksburg Correctional Facility. Gasque becomes the new inmate following his arrest for his illegal activities as Big Raymond intimidates him to say goodbye to Stan. Lew is also an inmate after he had foreseen that he would be arrested for having slept with a member of the jury and for being a corrupt lawyer. Stan is met by his wife, his young daughter Mindy Jr., and the Master outside the prison, where he has become Mindy Jr.’s nanny. Happily, they drive off into the sunset.
Cast
- Rob Schneider as “Big” Stan Minton, a rich real estate con artist.
- Jennifer Morrison as Mindy Minton, Stan’s wife.
- Scott Wilson as Francis Gasque, a corrupt warden of Verlaine State Correctional Facility who seeks to get the prison closed down so he can sell the land.
- Henry Gibson as Larry / “Shorts”, an inmate befriended by Stan who’s serving a life sentence for killing his partner.
- Richard Kind as Mal, Stan’s lawyer.
- Sally Kirkland as Madame Foreman, a jury member who finds Stan guilty.
- Jackson Rathbone as Robbie, a hippie inmate and former drug dealer.
- M. Emmet Walsh as Lew Popper, a shyster whom Stan replaces with Mal during his trial.
- David Carradine as The Master, a martial arts guru who trains Stan to survive prison.
- Marcelo Ortega as Big Haa, an inmate.
- Marcia Wallace as Alma
- Diego Corrales as Julio
- Randy Couture as Carnahan
- Don Frye as Nation Member
- Brandon Molale as Guard Piken
- Lil Rob as Inmate
- Brandon T. Jackson as Deshawn, an inmate.
- Olivia Munn as Maria, a secretary.
- Barbara Dodd as Mrs. Darby, an old lady whom Stan tried to con.
- Richard Riehle as Judge Perry, a judge who presides over Stan’s trial.
- Kevin Gage as Bullard, a sympathetic prison guard.
- Dan Inosanto as Prison Chef
- Bob Sapp as Big Raymond, a tough inmate.
- Tsuyoshi Abe as Dang, a Vietnamese Mafia member and one of the Master’s students.
- Ahman Green as Lee Otis, a former bank robber and inmate.
- Salvator Xuereb as Patterson, the leader of the Nazi Prison Gang.
- Buddy Lewis as Cleon, the leader of the Black Prison Gang.
- Peter Vasquez as Juanito, the leader of the Mexican Prison Gang.
- Megan Cavanagh as a Parole Board member.
- Dan Haggerty as a gay ex-con
- Faith Womack as Mindy Jr., Stan and Mindy’s daughter.
- Andrew Bernhard as Inmate
Rob Schneider’s mother Pilar cameos as one of the board of governors. Wes Takahashi, former animator and visual effects supervisor for Industrial Light & Magic, makes a cameo appearance as a bartender.[3]
Production
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Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 11% based on reviews from nine critics (one positive, eight negative), with an average rating of 3.00/10.[4]
Julie Rigg of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was highly critical of the rape-based humor, and concluded ” I wasted two valuable hours of my life on Big Stan—don’t make the same mistake.”[5] Writing for The Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Byrnes asked “If there’s been a clumsier, dumber, more casually put together collection of badly timed gags, racial stereotypes and lazy performances this year, I have yet to see it…How could [Schneider] be in so many movies over a 20-year career and learn so little about making a movie?”[6] Brian Orndorf of DVD Talk called it “a forgettable, unfunny waste of time”. He criticized the “unrelenting” repetition of rape jokes, but believed that Schneider acted the character’s fear of rape convincingly. Despite this, he concluded that the film’s ‘failure to find even the slightest punchline deviation is depressing’.[7]
MovieHole rated it 3.5 out of 5 and called it Schneider’s best film since The Hot Chick.[8]
References
- ^ “Big Stan”. Box Office Mojo.
- ^ Dawtrey, Adam (18 May 2007). “MGM is big on Sky’s ‘Big Stan'”. Variety.
- ^ “Subject: Wes Ford Takahashi”. Animators’ Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 12 August 2016. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
- ^ “Big Stan (2009)”. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2021-09-11.
- ^ Rigg, Julie (November 27, 2008). “Big Stan”. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
- ^ Byrne, Paul (November 29, 2008). “Big Stan”. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
- ^ Orndorf, Brian (March 16, 2009). “Big Stan”. DVD Talk.
- ^ Clint, Caffeinated (6 November 2008). “Big Stan”. Moviehole.net. Archived from the original on 22 July 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2020.