I Am Steve McQueen Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

I Am Steve McQueen Blu-ray Movie Review

. . .and you're not?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 13, 2015

It’s probably too facile to say “there was only one Steve McQueen,” especially considering the fact that there’s a certain Oscar winning director currently running around with the same name, not to mention that “the” Steve McQueen’s own grandson, Steven R. McQueen, is something of a young heartthrob on television’s The Vampire Diaries. But for anyone who was watching television from the late 1950s on, or who went to the movies in the 1960s and 1970s, there is in fact probably only one Steve McQueen, the iconic tousled haired, incredibly blue eyed actor who personified “cool” courtesy of any number of anti-authoritarian roles he essayed in films as disparate as The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Cincinnati Kid, Bullitt, The Sand Pebbles (his sole Academy Award nomination for Best Actor), and Papillon. Anyone looking for depth in I Am Steve McQueen, a 2014 piece which evidently aired on Spike TV, had best look elsewhere, but for a generalist overview stuffed with appealing interviews and some enjoyable film clips, this will probably suffice as a CliffsNotes version of the life of one of the 20th century’s most iconic actors.

It’s perhaps indicative of the general glossiness (in both senses of that term) of I Am Steve McQueen that I actually uncovered quite a bit more biographical information on the legend in reading up about him online as I prepared to write this review than I did from actually watching the documentary. As with so many showbiz overviews, this seems to have been pasted together with economy in mind, and it zooms through whole decades, especially those early in McQueen’s troubled youth, without pausing to really impart many salient facts. For example, had I not read about it, I wouldn’t have known from the documentary about Steve’s father abandoning his mother, nor about the ping ponging home lives he experienced as he was shuttled back and forth between various relatives. Even his brushes with the law as a youngster are handled somewhat discursively, as if the documentarians didn’t want to sully the waters too much with negative portrayals.

Perhaps to reassure an ADHD audience that there will be plenty of time to spend with McQueen’s Hollywood years, I Am Steve McQueen probably shortchanges the all important formative era of McQueen’s life, though there is passing lip service given to his tenure at a boys’ foster home and to his stint in the military, two places that ex-wife Neile Adams states the actor felt an “anchor” of sorts, finally establishing a sense of order and connection that had been missing in his family life. While Adams’ recollections are certainly welcome, some of the other interview subjects are just plain odd, seemingly chosen to appeal to Spike’s demographic. The best interviews in the piece are with those who actually knew McQueen, and I Am Steve McQueen is to be commended for including McQueen’s son Chad, grandson Steven, second ex-wife Ali MacGraw and third wife Barbara Minty. Some of the most prescient information actually comes courtesy of director Norman Jewison, who states that virtually all of McQueen’s personality “quirks” stemmed from insecurities that the actor felt in not having a suitable father figure. It may be psychobabble, but it has a certain ring of truth to it.

There’s probably nothing in this piece that longtime McQueen fans aren’t already going to know, but there’s a fairly generous assortment of film clips as well as some archival interviews with the man himself that prove he could be a bit on the prickly side at times. The documentary doesn’t shy away from some of his demons, including an apparently volatile temper and womanizing proclivities that both evidently led to the breakup with Adams. Son Chad offers typical son hero worship, but is somewhat more laconic than his own son, Steven, who, while born after his grandfather’s demise, seems to feel a real connection with him.

The documentary has occasional lapses in its chronology (McQueen's own pet project An Enemy of the People is completely missing in action), but a quick overview of some of his biggest hit films is included, and there's quite a bit of time spent on McQueen's other main passion, the need for speed. In fact Neile makes a rather funny, slightly off color, comment about how machinery was actually a prime motivating factor in McQueen's physical makeup. Credits perusers will actually notice a McQueen Racing listed as a production entity, proving that Steve's love of fast cars has matriculated down to Chad unabated.

I Am Steve McQueen Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I Am Steve McQueen is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a serviceable but hardly breathtaking looking piece, one that expectedly pops with the most sharpness and clarity in the contemporary interview segments (though son Chad's segments are often bathed in odd shadows, making him hard to see at times). These sequences feature good to excellent detail and fine detail, and an accurate looking palette. The film clips, some of which look like they were sourced from old video, are in decent enough condition, but certainly nowhere near the clarity and precision that those released on Blu-ray have in their "official" releases. The main black and white archival interview included actually looks fairly decent, while some of the later on the fly candid footage, notably some taken around the time of Le Mans as well as some old home movies, is pretty raggedy looking.

I Am Steve McQueen Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I Am Steve McQueen features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix which, like the video component, is perfectly serviceable but generally unremarkable. Robert Downey, Jr.'s narration is actually fairly limited, and the bulk of this documentary is comprised of first person confessionals as well as archival footage featuring McQueen himself. There's no real disparity in quality between this patchwork quilt of audio elements, and fidelity remains strong throughout the presentation, with no problems of any kind to address in this review.

I Am Steve McQueen Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• McQueen's Garage (1080p; 15:50) continues with some of the same interview subjects found in the main feature, with an emphasis on the actor's love of classic vehicles.


• Yucatan (1080p; 4:48) is an interesting piece featuring son Chad discussing a rather peculiar inheritance.


• Trailer (1080p; 1:10)

I Am Steve McQueen Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I Am Steve McQueen doesn't break any new ground, and it's sometimes an odd amalgamation of reminiscences by those who actually knew the actor thrust uneasily up against more "fanboy" (and/or fangirl) comments from a variety of odd additions to the interview cast. Real McQueen fans won't find anything new here to chew on, but it's still interesting to hear his two ex-wives and widow discuss what living with him could be like, and it's obvious that his son still lionizes his father. (One of the curiously uncovered elements in this piece is the death of McQueen's daughter Terry.) Technical merits are generally strong, and despite some shortcomings, I Am Steve McQueen comes Recommended.