Mike Rowe’s “love letter” to those who built the USA is coming to cinemas

July 1, 2024

Published: June 30, 2024

Photo by Mike Rowe Works on Instagram

Mike Rowe’s “love letter” to those who built America hits theaters

By Movieguide® Contributor

Mike Rowe has something to say about his new docudrama “SOMETHING TO STAND FOR.”

“Like most of my career, it was a mix of Forrest Gumpery and serendipity,” he told The Stream about the inspiration for the film. “I had been working on a podcast called That’s what I heardand I still do. I started it about eight years ago. Basically it started as a collection of stories written in the style of Paul Harvey.”

“I love the idea of learning something about someone I didn’t know, but having the chance to find out. So it was a short podcast with a mix of history and mystery. I called it ‘Stories for Curious People with Short Attention Spans’ and just started writing about some of my favorite people,” the DIRTY JOBS star explained.

“And the podcast became something, and I wrote a couple hundred stories for it. And then it became a book, and then it became a TV show. And then some smart guy said, ‘Hey, for a particular occasion, maybe Christmas or maybe the Fourth of July, why don’t you put together a few relevant stories and we’ll make a movie out of it?'”

“I thought it was a terrible idea,” Rowe admitted, “but then I thought about it some more and then we started adapting these stories for the big screen.”

It turned out that the idea wasn’t so bad after all.

Movieguide® praised SOMETHING TO STAND FOR for its “very strong moral, patriotic worldview that celebrates American values.” The review states, among other things:

SOMETHING TO STAND FOR WITH MIKE ROWE is a lively documentary film coming just in time for the Fourth of July. Television personality, narrator and motivational speaker Mike Rowe tells several historical stories that celebrate American patriotism. Rowe tells several reenacted patriotic stories. The stories include tales about the Founding Fathers, several American soldiers who participated in various famous battles, two Medal of Honor recipients, an American President and two Supreme Court Justices. He also tells a story about a piece of advice the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave to a young black singer that impacted her life.

“SOMETHING TO STAND FOR” is a moving, inspiring and great documentary. Mike Rowe, who was the producer and screenwriter, gives his film an energetic style. It celebrates freedom, patriotism, duty, honor and sacrifice. However, it distorts some historical facts. “SOMETHING TO STAND FOR” also contains some reenactments of war violence, some mild obscenities and a humorous, somewhat offensive biographical story about animal husbandry. Therefore, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution with younger and older children. Nevertheless, “SOMETHING TO STAND FOR” with Mike Rowe is worth seeing on the big screen.

Rowe believes that “SOMETHING TO STAND FOR” is a “kind of love letter to the people who helped build the country and to the principles that most people today, even people on opposite sides of the aisle, agree make us who we are: uniquely American.”

“We’re still in development,” he told Fox News. “The film doesn’t try to wrap itself in the flag and say, ‘Hey, we did it. Keep going. We’re perfect.’ (It’s) an unapologetically patriotic film that I think gives me the right to say that despite the imperfections of our founders and despite the world we find ourselves in today, we still have a lot to be proud of, we still have a lot to be thankful for – and we still have a lot to celebrate.”

“SOMETHING TO STAND FOR” is now in cinemas.