I've read at least four biographies on Dean. This movie strays from what is known and takes too many unnecessary and less interesting liberties. Its also way too short. Franco does the best job he can, I suppose. Unfortunately, Jimmy was a pure genius performer that can never be brought back or even summoned up by an actor now. I mean, who could portray Brando or Phoenix really? I think the best chance of making a great film about Dean would be to have one written purely in fact. There are enough facts to do this! (Not some poorly prepared script that really doesn't show Deans true story) Also, in my mind..a biographical film would have to be animated with some new technology to look great and come close to any authenticity. And as they took Brandos voice and created a new performance for him in the last Superman movie,maybe they could do so with Dean in another biographical picture. I think this would be the best chance at a great telling of Dean's story. It would be almost as if it were coming from Dean himself if it were done correctly and with the highest of standards. There wouldn't be another actor really standing in the way. No disrespect to Franco. I think hes grown into a good actor. I applaud the decent attempt on Francos part. I applaud the producers for their attempt as well. Making a film is very hard. Making a good one seems damn near impossible. I do however think the producers here were lazy in their excavation of Dean. I do understand that this is a made for TV movie and is going to have limitations. I just don't understand how they could have chosen to tell his story without really diving into his story. The truth of it is way better than some of the fiction that this film conjured up. :^)

James Dean is a biographical TV movie based on the life of the American actor of the same name. James Franco plays James Dean under the direction of Mark Rydell, who chronicles Dean's rise from a struggling actor to an A-list movie star in 1950s. The film also features Michael Moriarty, Valentina Cervi, Enrico Colantoni, and Amy Rydell.James Dean is a made-for-cable biography that looks at the star's short but troubled life, his years of struggle before his sudden rise to fame, and the car crash that took his life at the age of 24.During his all- too-short career,James Dean helped to radically redefine the way teenagers were portrayed on screen,and the expressive naturalism of his performances did more to establish the "method" school of acting in the public mind than any other actor outside of Marlon Brando. The TV movie is an enjoyable feature as it tries its best to bring to the viewer the life of the legend and icon,James Dean.Although the movie lacks the energy needed to keep it interesting,engaging and absorbing,the film still manages to hold on into its own despite its shortcomings.But nevertheless,it would still be enjoyed by many James Dean fans.

James Franco was phenomenal as James Dean. He got his quirkiness and idiosyncrasies down to a TEE! Plus, there are moments throughout the film when you would swear he was the real deal--They look THAT much alike! That being said, this film put forth a very determined effort to reconstruct James Dean as Cal Trask from East of Eden. And I don't make this comment lightly--I've done a lot of research on James Dean, read several books, and even written a few academic papers on him. The aspects of his life that actually did happen in the film were exaggerated or otherwise just presented in such a way as to parallel James Dean to Cal Trask. The entire relationship with his father is construed this way: Dean's constant accomplishing of new things to buy his father's love, the confrontation scene with his father, etc. It's true that Elia Kazan's assistant did say, "He IS Cal Trask," but anyone who's read a decent biography of Dean knows that his relationship with his father wasn't nearly as antagonistic as they portrayed it in the film. He didn't go to Indiana for the funeral because he was broke, and the whole "I'm not your father" thing is completely unsubstantiated by any sources I have come across! Additionally, the film totally plays into the modern belief that James Dean was well-respected as a gifted Method actor in his time, but it's very widely-known that critics in Dean's time thought he was a knock-off version of Marlon Brando who lacked any real technique. And the film's presentation of Elia Kazan as James Dean's biggest fan is completely false! In his biography, Kazan very explicitly states that he didn't believe Dean had anywhere near the amount of talent as Marlon Brando, and that if he had lived his lack of technique and real ability would have led to a very quick downfall. What I found really strange was that the film completely left out a lot of the MOST controversial things that it's Proved Dean actually did, but, then again, this was a made-for-TV movie, so maybe they couldn't...So, in short, watch the film for some great performances and a fabulous presentation of the myth of James Dean, but don't take it as 100% historically accurate.

I would like to begin by truly saying that James Dean was an actor that met his end before we, as cinema watchers, were fully about to appreciate his talent as well as full body of work. The short three films that he devoted himself to wasn't enough for my taste buds, and I think the majority of film aficionados would heartily agree – yet I would have to say that those seeking the knowledge of James Dean, the truth behind his life and his devotion to youthfulness – should not (repeat NOT) watch this horrid film. I realize that this was a made-for-TV film that couldn't take the risks that most major budget films could, but I didn't realize that "consecutive sentences and structured storytelling" needed a big budget to complete. What made this film strange was that it began so strongly with a detailed scene about how devoted Dean was to his trade, but after that, it just went further downhill by avoiding details and the classic cop-out "educated guess" technique. From outlandish storytelling to depreciating acting from the beginning to the end, James Dean attempted to bring Dean to life, but sadly, just drove Dean into another devastatingly horrid car crash.While I did mention above my disappointment with the acting, it wasn't so much the style of acting, just the lack of excitement. Dean was played by Spiderman's egotistical villain (hell-bent on saving his father's name), James Franco. While I feel he captured the audacity of Dean, as well as those smaller details, but he wasn't Dean. To me, there were scenes that felt as if Franco was adding onto Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man impression/character. He wasn't original, he wasn't charismatic enough, and the Franco's win of a Golden Globe was completely uncalled for. He played the part, but didn't build the character, and after all of it I still had the looming thought that Rydell left me with at the very end … the "educated guess" which completely debunked the film – but that is another story. Sam Gould playing Martin Landau was completely forgettable and I disliked the fact that Landau was such a small part to the story, in fact, by the end, he was forgotten about entirely. One could say that nearly all the secondary characters were forgettable in the sense that if you blinked, you would literally miss them. Director Rydell was so excited about having a biopic about Dean in his repertoire of films that he didn't seem to care that Dean was built upon the people surrounding him. Landau, Kazan, and even Angeli didn't seem to match (or even remember) up to what this film needed to be. What I wanted to see, and what this film needed to be a pivotal biopic about James Dean, were a foundation based around strong supporting characters adding to the destabilized life that Dean lead. All I witnessed from the actors involved were a slight movement of their hands, an occasional bit of emotion, and a small segway into the life of Dean – nothing that one could build a mountain upon. I believe this is why the film's ending was so futile. We weren't shocked or surprised by the ending, because by that point in the film we just didn't care – apathy had set in, and we were dumbstruck to resist it.Finally, I would like to say that when you are making a "made-for-TV" movie, there is no need to give it the feel of a "made-for-TV" movie. In fact, most of the films that go beyond that point do very well (i.e. see some of Stephen King's miniseries), but for James Dean it felt rushed, fast, and completely underdeveloped. I have already mentioned about the acting, but the story, which surrounds these actors, was just as weak. Nothing worked, nothing was exciting, nothing was jaw-dropping at all, basically, we had a couple of unknown actors doing what little they could to afford their current rent checks. How embarrassing is that … especially for the Dean estate? We needed force, power, drama, and humanity all rolled into one, but instead we just found a shallow actor doing a weak impersonation (if one could even call it that). Not that I could really give away the ending, but there seemed to be about two hours missing from the climax between Dean and his father and the iconic crash. The crash wasn't even worth the film it was printed on. Slow motion drama with a random unknown in the passenger side (not unknown, but again, lacking the development) – weren't these techniques mastered and forgotten about in the late 80s? After watching this film I felt cheated, because I love Dean's body of work and what he represented in Hollywood, but this film captured nothing of the sort.Overall, I thought this was one of the worst biopics that I have seen in my time of watching films. It was shallow, disrespectful, and pointless to the end because you walk away knowing less about Dean than when you started. Nothing congealed in this film because of both the shabby acting as well as the under-developed (which is a word I used too many times and is not shrew enough) story which completely debunks itself as the final credits roll by using the lines, "Most of this film was based on fact... some was an educated guess." Who ends a film like this? Imagine turning in a term paper with the phrase at the bottom, "I couldn't get all the facts correct, so I guessed on most of it" – would the Professor accept your paper? I think not my friend, which is why I cannot accept this film as a "real" biography of James Dean. This one should be stricken from the record books. I am sorry Mr. Dean – this film is not what should remain as your legacy.Grade: * out of *****