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Big Stan

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For the Chicago skyscraper nicknamed "Big Stan", see Aon Center (Chicago).

Big Stan
Promotional poster
Directed byRob Schneider
Written byJosh Lieb
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyVictor Hammer
Edited byRichard Halsey
Music byJohn Hunter
John Debney (themes)
Production
companies
Distributed bySony Pictures Home Entertainment
Release dates
  • November 5, 2007 (2007-11-05) (KBS Premiere Pictures Festival)
  • March 24, 2009 (2009-03-24) (United States)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$7.5 million
Box office$8.7 million[1]

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 (the year in which Carradine also died).

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.

Plot

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Stan Minton is a wealthy real estate con artist who is 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 Verlaine Correctional Facility while giving him six months to reorganize the charity that Stan established to teach music to mentally disabled children.

As he cannot 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. After failing to learn self-defense at a dojo run by Master Cho, Stan is approached by a mysterious guru known as The Master who helps transform him into a martial arts expert. He passes every training and bests Master Cho. Upon Lew telling him that he has been reassigned to Oaksburg Correctional Facility, Stan gets himself processed for prison with the Master and Lew seeing him off as Lew has not heard anything about a divorce from Mindy and her lawyer. A tearful Mindy watches from afar.

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 prison warden Gasque has plans to force the prison's closure with a riot and sell off the property. While also encountering another student of the Master's named Dang, Stan helps Gasque with the real estate aspects in exchange for early parole. However, his peacemaking efforts threaten Warden Gasque'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, defeats Dang in combat, 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 is on his final day in prison where Bullard had been sworn in as the new warden as they have the inmates welcome the new arrival Lew who was disbarred after he had foreseen that he would be arrested for having slept with a member of the jury. The "No Rape" law is still in effect. Gasque becomes the new inmate following his arrest for his illegal activities as Big Raymond intimidates him to say goodbye to Stan. 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 as Stan tells the Master not to smoke in front of his daughter. Happily, they drive off into the sunset with the Master winking towards the viewers.

Cast

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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]

Reception

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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

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  1. ^ "Big Stan". Box Office Mojo.
  2. ^ Dawtrey, Adam (May 18, 2007). "MGM is big on Sky's 'Big Stan'". Variety. Retrieved May 27, 2025.
  3. ^ "Subject: Wes Ford Takahashi". Animators' Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 12 August 2016. Retrieved 26 June 2016.
  4. ^ "Big Stan (2009)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2021-09-11.
  5. ^ Rigg, Julie (November 27, 2008). "Big Stan". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
  6. ^ Byrne, Paul (November 29, 2008). "Big Stan". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
  7. ^ Orndorf, Brian (March 16, 2009). "Big Stan". DVD Talk.
  8. ^ Clint, Caffeinated (6 November 2008). "Big Stan". Moviehole.net. Archived from the original on 22 July 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2020.
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