Gossip Fodder in Steve McQueen's Ashes

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You can’t really define “cool” with words — attempting to do so just isn’t ... cool. But we all know cool when we encounter it. Jack Nicholson is cool. So were Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra. Mustangs are cool — or at least, they used to be. Steve McQueen proved how cool a Mustang can be in 1968 when he starred alongside one in Bullitt. Car chases were redefined, and Dodge Chargers never completely recovered. But I can tell you this: had Steve McQueen been behind the wheel of a Charger, rather than the Mustang, automotive design might look much different today.

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Now, that’s cool. And Steve McQueen defined it with just a look or a phrase. Even now, nearly 27 years after his death, he still does. Throughout his too-short career, he was an enigma whose on-screen persona rarely strayed far from the actual man, even though he was often at odds with himself, and those around him, as a result. Perhaps because he was so guarded, nobody’s ever produced a truly definitive biography about him.

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Unfortunately, Steve McQueen: an American Rebel does little to change that. Loosely based on Marshall Tirell’s 1993 book, Richard Martin’s documentary chronicles McQueen’s life fairly accurately, but rarely delves beyond the superficial. In fact, it more often than not comes across as a personal reminiscence by Martin, who introduces the film by emphasizing that he and McQueen were “drinking buddies” back in the day. The day in question was the late 1950s, when they were hustling work in New York City. That would have made a good introduction had Martin used that as a basis for his credibility for making the documentary. The problem is, he doesn’t let the good old days go. Instead, he threads his own life into some sort of parallel of McQueen’s.

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To be honest, I’d never heard of Richard Martin before viewing this documentary. Truth is, he’s had a less than illustrious career in the film industry. Yet, he persists in peppering the film with trivia about himself, letting us know that while McQueen was making such and such film, he was abroad, scouting locations or securing funds for some since-forgotten movie. It’s as if he’s screaming “I coulda been a contender!”

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Martin’s personal insecurities aside, An American Rebel is entertaining in a fluffy kind of way. We already knew that McQueen was a Hollywood bad boy, but this film only skims the underlying motivations behind the persona. His father deserted him and his alcoholic mother when he was a baby, he had run-ins with the law as a kid, he always had problems with authority — all of that’s common knowledge to any fan. It would have been nice to see something beyond the Hollywood hype about him — interviews with people who knew him, footage other than movie clips — anything that would have shed light on Steve McQueen the man.

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There are some tidbits scattered among all this. For instance, McQueen turned down a role in the original Ocean’s 11 when Hedda Hopper advised him, “Do you want to be a movie star, or a Frank Sinatra flunky?” A prior engagement saved him from being a victim when Charlie Manson’s guys went on their murder rampage, an incident that prompted him to carry a loaded handgun at all times thereafter.

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Steve McQueen: an American Rebel is full of interesting anecdotes about the man and his career. Sadly, the film lacks a cohesive focus, so all of the information is scatter-gunned about the landscape of the documentary. For those of us who grew up with the man who starred in Bullitt, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Sand Pebbles, and Nevada Smith, among others, it’s not going to offer many new insights. But as a primer for a generation who may only vaguely know of Steve McQueen, it's a good introduction to what cool means.