Richard Jewell - Review

Richard Jewell

Actor - Director Clint Eastwood has won four Academy Awards. Twice for Best Picture and Best Director for the films “Unforgiven” and “Million Dollar Baby”. These two films and subsequent work typically told dramatic stories involving fictional settings with fictional characters. But in the last 10 years he has moved his directorial camera’s focus to subject matters that are not only true, but uniquely involving “American” unsung heroes who showed acts of great bravery and nobility in moments of crisis. Sometimes they did it against great social ridicule and stigma (“Invictus”) to other times acts involving potential great peril to their very lives itself (“American Sniper”, “Sully” and “The 15:17 to Paris”).

In 2019 Eastwood takes another turn into true biographical dramatic material, one that is  based on previous written work from a 1997 published article called "American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell" His film here depicts the Centennial Olympic Park bombing during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, and its aftermath, in which security guard Richard Jewell found a bomb and alerted authorities to evacuate, only to later be wrongly accused of having placed it himself. It stars Paul Walter Hauser as Jewell, alongside Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, and Olivia Wilde.

REVIEW: This is Eastwood’s finest work since “American Sniper”. He has a tried a true directing style of letting the factual events of a story tell itself. He starts out with A that leads to B that goes to C, that reveals D and etc., etc. It’s a minimalist way of executing a film, one that is exclusively devoid of a significant or small subplot nor of any sentimental nuance or emotional flashbacks (we never find out what Richard was like as child).  Instead Eastwood traditionally relies on selecting a fine cast and then letting their exceptional acting prowess do the heavy cinematic lifting to bringing his story and central plot to its meaningful life. At the same time he uses his directorial camera lens like a traffic cop keeping them all collectively in the same driving lane revealing to the viewing audience succinctly, sparingly and always effectively why they are all there in the first………. “Richard Jewell was wrongfully accused and here’s how it happened”.

Overall, I applaud Eastwood’s desire to offer up a reasonable, balanced and plausible explanation as to why the FBI and the Atlanta - national media thought he was “a person of interest” to an “actually suspect”. Overall it isn’t a one-sided, vindictive tirade or attack on the FBI and media. I actually can see myself how Richard could have been easily assumed to be a suspect based on proven profiling technics. But shortly after Jewell’s 15 minutes of fame had subsided a tip comes in about his previous employment as an overzealous campus security officer that turns the tables on him. It’s here where Eastwood tangentially appears to put his thumb on the scales and a little too long suggesting some personal disdain has risen up in him. I am not suggesting the events he told were ever made up by him, but I still got the faint sense he was trying to make a bit of a political point. But he did not have to do it as there was so much factually honest material to keep working with. Still over time I just kept feeling that his “Jewell’” was as much a personal delight for Eastwood the director as well as a personal delight for the private citizen Eastwood and a film designed to be some animus cathartic twisting knife in the sides of federal authority. It’s not overtly blatant, but it’s not subtle either.

Both actors Paul Walter Hauser as “Jewell” and Sam Rockwell as his attorney “Watson Bryant” give Oscar nomination worthy performances. But it is Hauser who controls and commands the screen from beginning to end. His portrayal of the naively innocent, cop want to be, perpetual truth teller was brilliant. His uncanny vocal sounds, his physical looks and mannerisms were so spot on to the real Jewell it felt eerie. He captured both what was endearing and touching about Richard “man child adolescence” persona to his equally frustrating aspects that made him appear to be utterly stupid. So much so there were a few times I personally felt such a strong frustration at his trust for everyone that literally I could feel a desire well up in me to run up to the screen to shake him to say………….”Hey Richard, they’re treating you like a Pillsbury Dough Boy door mat – wake TFU”’.

With a set design and cinematography that is also Oscar worthy including the detail reinvention of the events leading up to bombing that was spine tingling, “Richard Jewell” the film is truly a compelling story. A strong humanistic compelling story. Not about a bad or foolish man but rather a genuinely nice man who did a great thing and yet still got caught in a legal vice looking to crush him all because he told the truth. And yet that was all Richard knew who to be - what to do - how to live. Even at great personal cost to him his innate and ingrained desire to always telling the truth, all the time, to everyone was as natural to him as him taking a breath,...........and honestly, in the end of the day, what is wrong with that.

3.50 Stars