Ageing former movie star Vic Edwards (Burt Reynolds) is facing into the facts that his glory days are behind him and he is in the twilight of his years. An invite to a small film festival where he will be honoured with a lifetime achievement award allows him to return to the place of his birth and reflect on his life. 

When Vic Edwards eventually takes up the offer of his lifetime achievement award and arrives in Nashville he is given a 24/7 driver in the form of Lil McDougal (Ariel Winter). She has no clue who he is, nor does she care and spends most of the time on the phone arguing with her boyfriend. But when he decides to go on a trip down memory lane to places of his youth she starts to warm up to the man he once was. There is one particularly poignant scene where, standing on a football field he stares into the distance and says, “It’s fun being a movie star, but nothing compares to being a football star.” This is Reynolds life. 

Later they even splice our aged Movie Star into Smokey and the Bandit and Deliverance and have him talk to his younger self. It is a brave and honest performance from Reynolds. 

It’s a shame then that the clunky comedy around a cheap film festival does not really work. Clark Duke plays his usual awkward self as a big fan hosting a festival that no film star has ever turned up to before. Whilst Winter’s character is initially just incredibly annoying prior to being won over when she actually listens to the man she is driving around. 

Shot in 2017, The Last Movie Star is perhaps aptly one of Burt Reynolds final films before his death in 2018. Whilst it does cover the universal theme of getting old it’s main focus is that it is a meditation on Reynolds career. It uses interviews, pictures and film clips from his career and looks at the questions of why Reynolds was not as famous as the likes of DeNiro, Brando et al. This aspect of the film is fascinating and heart warming. It feels like a knowing acceptance of regrets but still a resounding thank you for what he achieved. The comedy vehicle that it is attached to feels less impressive however and whilst it does eventually warm up to the task it is hit and miss. 

Any fan of Reynolds or just of movies and their stars will likely get a warm fuzzy feeling around the core of this film. The final moments are touching and I think the thought that Reynolds got his Hollywood ending is a happy one.