Big Stan
Rob Schneider


Imagine The Shawshank Redemption filtered through a raunchy, comic sensibility and you have Big Stan - a feel-good prison comedy.
Stan Minton (Saturday Night Live alumnus Rob Schneider) is a two-bit conman who wins a six-month reprieve from jail by hiring a shyster lawyer. He spends this period training under The Master (a chain-smoking, deadpanning David Carradine) in order to protect himself in prison.
By the time he enters jail, the skilled Stan uses his power for good, outlawing rape, sexist rap music and other violent entertainment. But he lets himself be talked into a deal with the prison warden, which threatens to undermine everything he has accomplished.
While the mix of physical comedy and vulgar jokes do not always hit the mark, there are a couple of laughs here for those who are not too thin-skinned.
But then Schneider, star of films such as The Animal (2001) and Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999), has already shown more restraint as a rookie director than one might expect.
(ST)