Stan is a con-man - a very wealthy one who happens to be really good at his game. He cons little old ladies out of their retirement money by selling them timeshares in Hawaii that happen to be in terrible neighborhoods. Finally, his naughty deeds catch up with him and he finds himself with a verdict of guilty. Stan cursing out the Madame Foreman of the jury (Sally Kirkland) doesn't bode well for sentencing day, either. So he fires his upstanding lawyer (Richard Kind) and he hires a shady lawyer named Lew Popper (M. Emmet Walsh) in the hopes of bribing the judge and getting a slap on the wrist. While this doesn't happen, he is granted 6 months to get his affairs in order before turning himself in. What does he do with this time? He learns the art of self-defense to make himself UNRAPEABLE!
When he flunks out of a local martial arts dojo, he hires "The Master" (David Carradine), after seeing a wicked cool display of his talents outside of said dojo. The Master moves into his house, chain smokes, eats his food and gets him started on a grueling regimen designed to make tiny Stan a tough guy. His lovely wife, Mindy (Jennifer Morrison), tries to be very supportive but gets somewhat alarmed when she sees her husband being beaten and practically tortured by The Master. But hey, it works, and by the time Stan has to go to the big house, he is one bad mo-fo, although The Master still claims he is his Number 2 student, hoping Stan is never unfortunate enough to meet Number 1.
When Stan enters prison, he immediately makes a show of his power and gains instant respect. As he gains followers, including his cellmate Shorts (Henry Gibson), and scared new prison members D'Shaun (Brandon Jackson, Tropic Thunder) and Robbie (Jackson Rathbone (Twilight), and he begins a prison reform that takes the place by storm. No more rape and fighting, racial tolerance and no more rap music but instead mariachi music, because it's happier. Sure, it's a bit far-fetched, but it sure is funny to watch. While this is great for the prisoners, it's bad news for Warden Gasque (Scott Wilson) since he finagled to get con-man Stan in his prison because he has designs on the land the prison sits on and Stan knows a good real estate con. If he can cause an unmanageable riot to occur while the Board of Governor's members are inspecting the facility, they'll close the prison down and his silent partner, a member of the Vietnamese mafia, can snap up the land for condo development. He offers Big Stan a really early parole to seal the deal, but will the new and improved Stan throw his new prison friends under the bus to save his own skin? Of course he won't!
Rob Schneider is absolutely priceless in this role and David Carradine is so smooth as The Master, dealing out more abuse than you can imagine. Seeing Big Stan artfully wield a soap-on-a-rope pair of nunchucks is too funny. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire movie. While there is a fair amount of male nudity in the film and some sexual content (after all, prison sex and homosexuality are discussed and joked about a great deal), it's still really funny and I never found myself offended. After all, Big Stan makes himself a mentor to all, a matchmaker for closet homosexuals in prison and even a peacemaker between the Nazi group and the Black and Latino groups. Special features include a commentary, a collection of bloopers and a 30 minute making-of featurette that is actually pretty good and fairly deep. It talks about how hard Schneider worked to get in shape and train in the martial arts, plus you'll get to hear from most of the actors on the film and what their experiences were like. It's pretty good stuff. If you like Rob Schneider's films, you'll probably really love Big Stan. If you are like me, and like some of his movies, you should definitely give this movie a chance, especially if you aren't easily offended.
