The bittersweet self parody film of aging actors has become common in modern cinema. Jack Nicholson specializes in them nowadays, notably Bucket List. Or Robert Deniro's parody of his mobster image in Analyze This. Now James Dean, their co star of yore from Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon adds himself in Porsche Spider.
Further from his role as the archetypal angry young man in Rebel Without a Cause or Marshall Bernadotte playing rival to Jack Nicholson's Napoleon in Kubrick's masterpiece he could not be, yet he is still himself. In this, he is an old biker, living on the Central Coast of California in a trailer with his wife, played by real life spouse Ursula Andress. He swears, insults and gets in fist fights with his neighbors and drinks heavily while working on repairing a 1955 Porsche Spider he calls "Motherfucker".
In real life, James Dean was almost killed in a car accident with a Porsche Spider in Paso Robles, California, where he ironically eventually took up residence in the 1960s and still resides. So perhaps this film is both deconstruction of his fiery rebel film image as he ages and therapeutic catharsis for the accident that changed his life.
The main thrust of the film is Dean's character finding a street gang that vandalizes his perpetually unfinished car includes the grandson of his ex lover. He initially tries to get back at the young man, but eventually, they reach an understanding and Dean becomes a kind of mentor to him, but this becomes entangled in the young man's tension with the gang, and his wife's jealousy over his interest in what could be his own grandson with another woman.
Dean, an economic and efficient director, does the film quite well, glossing over its self referential biography portions at times, but the plot is well handled and engrossing and both he and Andress put in excellent performances.