It seems Burt Reynolds hears death a’knockin and wants to give one last big fuck you to his critics and make sure the rest of us know he was more than the guy who married Loni Anderson.

I guess Smokey And The Bandit 4 isn’t happening.

According to the Hollywood Reporter:

Burt Reynolds is making another Hollywood comeback — not, this time, by playing a porn director, coach or politician, but by performing a meta role as an aging former movie icon.

In the new trailer for the upcoming A24/DirecTV title The Last Movie Star (see below), Reynolds’ character Vic Edwards, a former stuntman and movie star, travels to the “International Nashville Film Festival” to receive a career achievement award. Once in Tennessee, however, Reynolds’ character realizes the “festival” is a bunch of disorganized but diehard young fans celebrating his career in a bar, not the tony Hollywood affair he was expecting.

Burt did have some charisma starting out. He was a real presence in Deliverance and The Longest Yard. After that, I just remember him as the wise-ass, punch throwing, stay for the funny outtakes in the credits, voice of the Budweiser generation, in some lowest common denominator in-joke car chase movies.

He pretty much disappeared until Boogie Nights.

And despite the accolades he received, I didn’t feel he wasn’t anything special in it. That role could have been played by anyone really.

Here’s the trailer:

This too-clever-for-its-own-good meta-movie is Burt trying to prove he is still hip and was a serious actor and artist on par with Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, and Robert De Niro. Well maybe in your own mind you are, Burt. But perhaps if you had spent less time hanging out with Dinah Shore and Dom Deluise and more time working on some serious films, you would be truly worthy of some accolades.

To me, this seems to be nothing more than the standard, “End Of Career, Ego-masturbating, Old Man Who Was Most Likely An Asshole But Regrets It” movie template.

You could just stick in any half-forgotten mediocre male actor that’s circling the drain, add the Johnny Cash version of Hurt and get the same result.

The Last Movie Star arrives theaters and IMAX March 30 and will be available on DirecTV on Feb. 22.