Vic, the Reynolds character, is old. He hobbles around with a walking stick. In the first scene he is letting go of his old sick dog at the vet. But he lives in a nice looking apartment and drives a mercedes so he’s not poor and on the street, just an aging movie star but no longer “rich” if he ever was. He gets the invitation for a festival and it’s lifetime achievement award. He lives in LA, were the movie stars are, of course, and talks about the invitation at outdoor lunch with his old buddy played by Chevy Chase. Chase is not in it much, apparently only worked one day as he is always seated at the same table the few times he pops up in the movie. The buddy convinces him to go to this thing.
He arrives in Nashville and finds nothing as expected which creates the conflict for the drama with some comic stuff.
The core of the movie is the relationship between Vic and the festival organizer’s 20 year old sister who has been recruited to be his driver for the duration in her beat up old car. This part is played by Ariel Winter, who apparently is a TV star on a show I’ve never watched. A lot of the movie is just the two of them with Vic advising her on her pathetic love life and her being put upon having to deal with this “Old Asshole” at all. She is kind of a white trash girl frustrated by her life.
There are a couple of scenes where Reynolds plays opposite his younger self. There is a scene like that is in a car and one on a small boat where young Burt is shooting fish in a river with a large bow. I don’t know what movies these were from. I was not at all interested it the movies he made in the 1970s, Smokey and the Bandit, etc. Anyway, these scenes are well done and add some visual spice to the movie as well as highlighting the contrast between young handsome Burt/Vic and the old man. At one point the Vic character is talking about his bad choices for acting roles in his heyday, while other male actors of that era did more quality and lasting films. I wonder if this is based on the real Reynolds. I would guess that the only movie he made that people still want to watch is Deliverance.
As far as I’m, concerned and can recall, The Last Movie Star is the best movie Burt Reynolds has ever done and he presents an interesting character with a believable performance.
Aside from the young woman, old star conflict, the movie has more than its fair share of looking back sentimental stuff. Writer Adam Rifkin, is only 50 so I feel he is projecting this stuff on the old and highlighting regret filled concerns that might not exactly be that of someone 80.
The rinky-dink film festival is presented as just film fans doing it out of love. Meanwhile I suspect that a lot of small film festivals are more cynical than that, ways for the organizers to make a little dough by taking in wannabe entrance fees and that sort of thing.
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