I Am Burt Reynolds, on CW

You do not get to be the biggest movie star of all time if people don’t like you. In his prime, everyone felt a friendly connection to Burt Reynolds, because he seemed like such a fun guy. That was also reflected in his movies—perhaps a little too much. He made a lot of bad ones, but it is sad to think we won’t have any new Burt Reynolds movies ever again. The “last movie star’s” personal and career ups and downs are chronicled in Adrian Buitenhuis’s I Am Burt Reynolds, which premieres Saturday on CW.

If it were not for a career-ending injury, this documentary might have been on ESPN instead. Reynolds assumed football would make him a star. Instead, a drama teaching cast him in a play. That landed him stage work in New York, which led to television and eventually films.

Even at the start, Reynolds’ filmography was what you might describe as inconsistent, but there were always bright spots. Buitenhuis and company spend a good deal of time on John Boorman’s Deliverance, which was the film that made him a star. If Reynolds had accepted more roles like that, his career might more resembled that of Jon Voight, who discusses the film and Reynolds in great detail. The film also calls out the grossly underrated Sharky’s Machine as an example of Reynolds’s talent as a director. Had he pursued more such opportunities, his career might have somewhat parallelled that of Clint Eastwood. Instead, Reynolds opted to continue being the biggest movie star of all time and the #1 box office draw in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Some of those movies are still pretty bad, but some, like Hal Needham’s Smoky and the Bandit, remain action-comedy classics. With good reason, Needham, Reynolds’ friend and fellow-stuntman-turned director plays an important role in I Am Burt Reynolds (previously, their friendship was the subject of the terrific doc, The Bandit). Arguably, his loyalty to Needham worked out relatively okay for Reynolds, but evidently others amused the actor’s generosity. Of course, he had his share of tabloid-fodder relationships. Buitenhuis does not even address his romance with Dinah Shore, instead focusing on Sally Field and to a greater extent Loni Anderson, especially their lavish wedding and acrimonious divorce.

The best thing about I Am Burt Reynolds is the way it tries to capture his mediagenic charm. There is a lot of footage of Reynolds on the talk show circuit, poking fun at himself and spreading goodwill like cream cheese on a bagel. Younger viewers who might primarily know Reynolds from Boogie Nights and the occasional TV guest star spot or straight-to-DVD action movie will maybe start to get why he was such a big star after watching this documentary, which is quite a recommendation.

Considering the extent of Reynolds’ output, Buitenhuis does quite a nice job representing its breadth and variety. He overlooks Reynolds’ Twilight Zone appearance, but there is good coverage of Hooper, Navajo Joe, and Adam Rifkin’s aptly titled The Last Movie Star. After I Am Bruce Lee, this is probably the best of the I Am… franchise. It certainly makes you nostalgic to revisit the best of Reynolds’ films and TV shows. Recommended for fans and anyone looking to dive into some 1970s/1980s pop culture history, I Am Burt Reynolds airs Saturday night (12/30) on CW.