Over the last few years I have heard many people bemoan the loss of the true movie star. For a while I thought Dwayne Johnson was the last actor who could open a film based just on his charisma but Black Adam (as well as other films like Baywatch) proved that theory wrong. Tom Cruise may be one but it’s hard to say because Top Gun Maverick and Mission Impossible films both have franchise appeal more than Cruise solely getting people in seats.

It’s interesting to think about because there was a day when the movie stars were enough to bring moviegoers into the theater and one of those stars was Burt Reynolds. In a new documentary Burt Reynolds: The Last Interview director Rick Pampllin sat down with the star before his death in 2018 and talks about the current state of movie-making and his long career.

The documentary also includes friends of Reynolds, associates who worked with him at his theatre in Juniper, Florida and director Quentin Tarantino who was going to work with Reynolds in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood before his untimely death (Bruce Dern replaced him.)

Evidently Reynolds was hesitant to do interviews so this long detailed sit-down is a bit of an anomaly and as someone who knew little abut his life and career I enjoyed watching it. It’s insightful and has a lot to say particularly about the state of franchise mainstream films today.

7 out of 10

Smile Worthy

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