There’s been a space in my life without an MLB season this year; though there’s a brief season starting later this month. We must see what happens with it.

Speaking of baseball, the other night I watched the underrated 1996 thriller The Fan starring Wesley Snipes and Robert De Niro. Snipes stars as Bobby Rayburn, the centerfielder for the San Francisco Giants. With a $40 million price tag, everyone is expecting Rayburn to take the team to the World Series. Unfortunately, Rayburn goes on the worst hitting slump in his career. De Niro plays a diehard Giants fan, Gil Renard, who becomes obsessed with Rayburn.

The Fan (R; 116 minutes) is a well-made thriller that has become lost in time with many other brilliant movies. I had forgotten about the film until Mill Creek Entertainment released it this year on a Blu-ray + DVD combo pack (Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart) as a “double feature” with another Wesley Snipes’s vehicle - The Contractor.

The Contractor (R; 99 minutes) is one of Snipes’s direct-to-DVD titles released shortly before his three-year stint in prison for tax evasion. The movie has Snipes playing a retired marksman, James Dial, forced out of retirement by his former employers to take out the terrorist, Jahar. Things don’t as planned, and Dial finds himself on the run.

Final Thoughts

This is what I refer to as a bare-bones release. The movies share the same Blu-ray and DVDs. There’s only one menu with the movie titles and an English subtitle option. That’s it! There are no special features or bonus extras.

I was positive I had never seen The Contractor, but once I played it, I realized I had had already seen it; though I don’t recall Lena Headey or Charles Dance costarring together pre-Game Of Thrones. Yes, the plot is generic, but there are several entertaining action scenes that make it a decent watch.

As I’ve already mentioned, I’m a fan of The Fan, so there’s no need for me to give further details about my feelings for it.