With many films, the opening five minutes provide a fair indication of what you can expect the rest of the way. In Big Stan, that time consists of sleazy real estate developer Stan Minton (Rob Schneider) conning an elderly, wheelchair-bound woman into paying for a timeshare condo in a bad neighborhood. He does this by implying the local ethnic male population goes crazy over white women, regardless of age (or mobility). As the senior citizen becomes aroused, Minton promises her that she’ll be “awash in a sea of negro cock.” If you find that last part offensive, just go ahead and skip Big Stan, as things only get worse from there.
After being arrested and tried for fraud, Stan is sentenced to several years in prison, although his corrupt lawyer (M. Emmet Walsh) bribes the judge and gains him six months to “get his affairs in order.”. Convinced he’s going to be raped by his fellow inmates, Stan uses the time to study the martial arts. Things don’t go so well at first, but then he meets The Master (David Carradine), an eccentric, chain-smoking sensei who turns Stan into a lethal, yet diminutive, weapon.
When he finally goes to prison, the hardened criminals don’t stand a chance. Stan beats up blacks and white supremacists alike, eventually establishing his own code of conduct for the inmates. But this doesn’t sit well with Warden Gasque (Scott Wilson), as he’s planning for the prisoners to become so unruly that the facility is shut down, thus allowing him to profit from a flimsy scheme involving buying and developing the land where the prison sits.
Billed as an “anti-man raping” film, Big Stan consists largely of sophomoric humor revolving around sexual relationships between male prisoners. At first, it’s silly enough to draw a chuckle or two, but it becomes quite tiresome after a time. The same goes for the self-indulgent scenes of Schneider kicking ass and intimidating the much larger inmates. I understand that we’re supposed to laugh at little Rob beating up the convicts, but, once again, it’s a premise that quickly wears thin.
One of the few bright spots of the film is David Carradine (I can’t believe I just wrote that line). As The Master, he plays a larger-than-life parody of many of his martial arts roles, and everyone else is so unfunny that he winds up looking like a comedic genius.
Sports fans will have a decent time trying to spot all the athletes cast in the production. Names to look for include: Bob Sapp, Randy Couture, Ahman Green, Don Frye and the late Diego Corrales. If you know who these guys are without running to Wikipedia, then you might get a bit more amusement out of Big Stan than most.
There’s a good reason why Big Stan never played at theaters in the United States: it stinks. While audiences in Kazakhstan (no kidding) and Turkey were no doubt delighted by the comic stylings of Rob Schneider, American audiences may be quickly catching on to the fact that he cranks out lowbrow entertainment which appeals to the least common denominator. If you’re a serial rapist, you might find Big Stan hilarious; anyone else may feel as though their wallet has just been violated.
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