Finding Steve McQueen Movie Review

Finding Steve McQueen (2019)

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Written by: Ken Hixon and Keith Sharon
Directed by: Mark Steven Johnson
Starring: Travis Fimmel, Rachael Taylor, Forest Whitaker, William Fichtner, Lily Rabe, John Finn
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
In 1972, a gang of close-knit thieves from Youngstown, Ohio attempt to steal $30 million in illegal contributions and blackmail money from President Richard Nixon's secret fund.

Verdict
It's got plenty of style, but that's about it. The story isn't bad, but other than the setting the story does nothing to stand out. I expected the Steve McQueen aspect to play a much larger role. This has a few different story lines and that seems mainly to fill time. The fact this is based on a true story is interesting trivia, little else.
Skip it.

Review
This certainly has fun with the 70s style through cars and clothes. It wants to be over the top, breaking the fourth wall with character introductions and featuring goofy, comical criminals. This is framed with Harry (Travis Fimmel) telling his story of a bank robbery in which he was involved. There's also the timeline of the cops tracking Harry and his crew after the robbery. I have to wonder if the framing is just a way to get this to ninety minutes.

Travis Fimmel plays Harry Barber

From the premise I was expecting a Catch Me If You Can variant where a guy poses as Steve McQueen to get into and out of trouble. Harry likes McQueen and poses as him once to little effect, but the title is misleading. I thought the McQueen aspect would be a bigger portion of the story. At first I thought he was fooling his girlfriend, but no, not even her.

The plan isn't bad, and this provides some neat details on how they pull this off. It just feels generic. I don't know why they need so many on this crew. The characters are one note. Harry doesn't even impersonate McQueen. The rest of team is just there for a few comic relief moments. Enzo is the brains of the operation, but the movie should have done more to establish him.

Louis Lombardi, Rhys Coiro, Travis Fimmel, William Fichtner play Pauly, Ray, Harry, Enzo

We've got the cops on the trail of this robbery which takes years. I get why this intercuts the cops investigating the crime with the criminals setting it up. The investigation took so much longer and years before the heist team was even caught.

This has the style but the story is shallow. This should be much more fun than it is. This definitely should have had more fun with a Steve McQueen lookalike. From the premise alone I thought he might pull off a bunch of robberies while posing as Steve McQueen and just suckering people. I picture a McQueen impersonator tricking tellers into giving him cash. I really wish that was the movie. The movie doesn't even mention this is based on a true story. That's kind of neat, but like this movie ultimately doesn't matter.