As possibly the world's oldest and tallest Boy Scout, James Stewart always seemed a little out of place in Hollywood. Emerging onto screens in the mid-1930s, Stewart stood out among the unscrupulous studio heads, nosy gossip columnists, and divas whose names topped the posters. Sure, the City of Stars was cleaner-cut than it had been during its Babylon days a decade earlier, but that progress had been slow to catch up with Stewart's strengths. It's likely how he found favor with more socially minded and sophisticated directors like Frank Capra and George Cukor, starring in films such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and The Philadelphia Story, both of which would become timeless classics.

When we first meet James "Jimmy" Stewart in Jimmy, he's winning his Oscar for the latter film. Standing beside him onstage with an Oscar of her own is Ginger Rogers, whom everyone expects he'll eventually marry. That should be enough to make him view his life as a grand fairy tale, the kind every dreamer hopes to achieve. But Jimmy comes from a salt-of-the-earth family, one where patriotism and military service are the hallmarks of an honorable life. Front and center in the family hardware store sits a display of military medals and uniforms, while Jimmy's Oscar is tucked away in the bottom-right corner.

Jimmy never takes offense to that placement. In fact, he agrees with it. His guilt boils over as he wins make-believe awards and stars in lightweight comedies while upstanding boys from his hometown are being drafted into World War II. When his draft notice finally arrives, MGM boss Louis B. Mayer offers to pull some strings and have Stewart deferred. Instead, Jimmy has to pull a few strings of his own just to get into the war, defying a colonel who initially tells him that "America can't afford to lose Jimmy Stewart." His skills as a pilot are just as refined as his talents as an actor, eventually earning him a posting in Europe as captain of a bomber squadron.

That's more or less where the story remains for the next 90 minutes, with Stewart wrestling with his conscience and his desire to be a good man amid the brutal realities of war. He has played heroes on screen before, but being one when real men are counting on you to bring them home is an entirely different challenge. It's a fascinating chapter of Stewart's life for screenwriter Justin Strawhand to focus on, offering a recontextualization of the actor's career choices and worldview both before and after the war. Beyond simply being a master of his craft, Stewart channeled much of his wartime experience into his performance as George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life. He wasn't speaking only to his co-stars when he delivered those impassioned speeches about the beauty of life and love.

Unfortunately, as evidenced by the shoddy craftsmanship on display in the first act, the production struggles to sustain a runtime largely devoted to wartime recreations. Unconvincing establishing shots of Hollywood and scenes that feel far more cramped than intended quickly undermine the film's ambitions. The aerial sequences rely on poor visual effects, with actors obviously sitting inside cockpits surrounded by green screen. Everything is also overly lit and heavily color-graded, giving the film the look and feel of modern cable television. This is also the kind of wartime melodrama that includes a scene where one of Jimmy's squadmates pulls out a picture of his girl back home, only to die shortly afterward. If I ever go to war, nobody's going to know I have a girlfriend, since that's always the first guy to die.

Riverdale star KJ Apa has the unenviable task of stepping into Jimmy's shoes. For the most part, his impression is remarkably successful, with Stewart's distinctive voice and cadence replicated uncannily well. However, he tends to lose the impression whenever he raises his voice above a conversational level, which becomes distracting during his impassioned speech to the squad before one of their final missions. Fortunately for him, most of the performance is played in a sorrowful, hushed register as Jimmy grapples with his guilt and his desire to be a great man.

Unfortunately, he isn't aided much by the supporting cast, who consistently overplay their roles and deliver their lines with such artificiality that one can only assume it was a directorial choice by Aaron Burns. Jason Alexander bellows as though he's playing to the back row of a Broadway theater when he's introduced as Mayer, while Neal McDonough speaks almost exclusively in stiff, leaden screenplay dialogue as Jimmy's gruff father.

In an age of Wikipedia biopics that hop from one life event to the next with little interest in exploring their subject's character, Jimmy stands out for attempting to focus on a single, lesser-known chapter of a life expansive enough to fill multiple volumes. Unfortunately, that slice of Stewart's story still proves too large for the film to comfortably contain, suggesting this approach was never going to be entirely successful within the production's limitations. Still, if you're going to strike out, you might as well do it swinging.

Fathom Entertainment will release Jimmy in theaters nationwide on November 06th.