By Dan Skip Allen

It goes without saying James “Jimmy” Stewart is one of the all-time greatest actors in history. His films such as “The Philadelphia Story”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Vertigo”, “Rear Window” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” to name a handful have wowed audiences for decades. They have been part of the American lexicon and pop culture for many, many years. I watched those and many others of his movies when I was a kid. And still do to this day. He’s an indelible part of my, and others, movie going upbringing. Even though I was a big fan of his, it wasn’t until many years later that I found out he had served in the military. “Jimmy” deals with this part of his life mostly. It was something that meant a lot to him in his career, and you’ll find out why after watching this autobiographical film.

Jimmy Stewart (Kj Apa, I Still Believe) is riding high in Hollywood after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for “The Philadelphia Story”. Louis B Mayer (Jason Alexander) wants him to do another picture for him right away. Ginger Rogers (Jemma Donovan) is hot on his trail. She’s smitten by his charm and wit, but she’s not the only one. America loves their down-home country boy, but the boy turned into a big movie star. When he gets a letter with the number 331 on it, he realizes what it is. It’s his draft notice. Mayer says he can help him get out of it, and Hedda Hopper (Sarah Drew) tabloid reporter sees a story that she can sell to her readers. Jimmy, on the other hand, has other ideas. He feels it’s necessary for him to be like every other young man in the country who got drafted.  serve his country. He doesn’t want to be labeled a draft dodger. He turns to his father, Alexander Stewart (Niel McDonough), for advice. He was a colonel in the military. Now, he owns and operates his own hardware store. He doesn’t get the advice he thought he’d get, though, and that makes his decision even more difficult. Eventually, he decides to go to the Army Air Corp, which changes the outcome of his life and career forever.

Aaron Burns, the director, and Justin Strawhand, the writer, gave this story a distinct look and feel. There is pristine  cinematography in this film. For the time period, it was a little too pristine. I liked the story quite a bit, but the look of the film was way too shiny for me. The clothes, haircuts, dresses, and even the production design had a cleanliness to them that rubbed me the wrong way a bit. I think at this time you would be hard pressed to find shoes this spit-shined or uniforms that looked that perfect. A little dirt wouldn’t hurt anybody. Even on the backlots, everything looked perfect. Well, all except the archival footage. That looked much more realistic and dirty looking. I’m baffled by why these directors continue to make history look so clean and pristine all the time.

Besides Apa and the other cast members, I mentioned there is an extensive supporting cast in this movie. Rob Riggle plays Colonel Terrill. At first, he’s a hard ass but eventually, he comes around to Stewart and his team of pilots. He’s usually a comedian and is in films to make people laugh but not here. He’s pretty serious. One of those pilots is Second Lieutenant Martinez, played by Julian Works. He has a little screen time but makes an impact when he is given the chance in the context of the story. Last but not least are Lady Julia Tyndall, played by Kara Killmer and Rita Hayworth, played by Courtney D’Angelo. These are both love interests in the film, but one has more to do than the other. The Kilmer character goes toe to toe with Apa’s Stewart on more than one occasion.  She’s his equal, or rather, that’s what she thinks. The scenes with these two in them are pretty good. They made for a good couple in the film’s narrative. 

Apa is a good young actor. I watched him in Riverdale as Archie for a few years. Ever since he branched out in films, I’ve seen him a couple of times. “The Map that Leads to You” the aforementioned “I Still Believe” and “The Hate U Give”. Similarly to Jimmy Stewart, he has an everyman quality to him. He makes sense in this role. The thing I didn’t expect until I saw the trailer for “Jimmy” was that he would nail the accent and voice cadence of this legendary actor. I completely bought him as Stewart. I genuinely cared about everything he said and did as this character. He deserves a lot of credit for his performance. When I watch a biopic like this one, I want the actor portraying the lead or title character to be believable, and he was definitely that as far as I was concerned. And it’s not a caricature like I’m sure some people will say. 

One of the things I don’t think a lot of people knew about Jimmy Stewart was that he has PTSD from his time flying planes. With any loud sound or exploration, he was very bothered by them. He even had bad nightmares of his fellow pilots  dying in plane crashes. This wasn’t a thing back in WWII. So the fact he had this was a big deal during those days. Of course, nowadays, soldiers are diagnosed with this all the time. Even animals can have PTSD. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. It has to be hard to be a productive citizen when you’re constantly being bothered by such a debilitating ailment as this. They have done this better in other movies, but it was used to good effect here as well.

With this film focusing on WWII, a good portion of the story involved men in B52 bombers dogfighting in the sky. These scenes were effective in context to the story being told, but I felt there was a problem regarding the background CGI or mat paintings of the sky. They didn’t match up well with the characters in the cockpit of the planes and the acting they were doing. These scenes needed to work better than they did. I felt like there was a disconnect with the battle sequences because of this. I wished they had worked better, but unfortunately, they didn’t for me. The budget may have had something to do with it. Who knows?

“Jimmy” was a mixed bag for me. The acting by the entire cast was fantastic, especially Apa as Jimmy Stewart. The story worked as well for me. I learned things about this man I didn’t know about before watching this film. Those were the good things. Unfortunately, there were some bad things that I had big problems with, namely a lot of the technical aspects of the film including the CGI, and cinematography as well as the pristine nature of the clothes and so forth. I wished things looked a little dirtier. I’m a big fan of Jimmy Stewart, so saying anything bad about a biopic about him is blasphemous to me, but I have to be honest. This movie wasn’t great. It was just okay to me. Hopefully, people will go see it anyway for themselves. 

🌟 🌟 🌟 stars