The Fan: Synopsis

He is the one they look for when the Klieg lights blaze, the one whose pictures hangs on the wall. His presence hits them like a drug. He is the light and the glory, a reason to live ... even die.

They are the untold millions whose adoration translates into magazine covers and multi-million dollar contracts. They are the sea of faces rendered invisible by distance, blurred together by their sheer mass, known only in the collective as 'the fans.'

For all fans, the rules are unspoken but crytal-clear: you don't get too close to your heroes. But one fan, Gil Renard (Robert Niro), is about to bend those rules.

The stellar career of his idol, Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes), means everything to Gil. It is the filter through which he's viewed his own life, distilling it into something better. While Bobby's star appears to fall, Gil's own life spirals downward until he has nothing left but the prospect of returning his idol to his former glory, even if it means stepping out of the shadows of fandom and into his own dark center stage.

And the deadly game begins.

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Thirty-three year old Bobby Rayburn (Wesley Snipes) has it all. A cocky four-time League RBI champ, he knows he's king of the hill. Not only does his megawatt smile grace the covers of nearly every major magazine, but his agent Manny (John Leguizarno) has just turned his .310 lifetime batting average into a $40 million paycheck -- a hefty reward for returning to his hometown to play for the San Francisco Giants.

Fans and sportscasters alike balk at that price. That's an awful lot of dough to spend for a ballplayer who was on the disabled list for more than half of the previous season and then missed spring training due to a contract dispute.

But none of that matters to Rayburn's most fervid supporter, Gil Renard (Robert De Niro). Gil has followed the ballplayer's career since the 1982 High School City Championships when the young centerfielder's homer saved the day.

And when Renard is able to tell his hero during a live radio call-in show, hosted by top sports broadcaster Jewel Stem (Ellen Barkin), that for him Rayburn's return to San Francisco is "a magical conjunction, like when the planets come into alignment" -- well, life doesn't get much better than that.

Unlike some people, Renard's faith remains true even as Rayburn's star seems to be slipping into a fade. When the fan accidentally discovers that the inexplicable career slump might have its roots in Rayburn's rivalry with Juan Primo (Del Toro), a Giants teammate whose position he has usurped, Renard's obsession takes a deadly turn and he secretly vows to stop at nothing, including murder, to restore his idol's reputation.