With Clint’s latest film Richard Jewell (2019) premiering
last week at the AFI (American Film Institute), I felt it was time to start up
a dedicated page relating to reviews and other various stories relevant to the
movie.
Clint Eastwood Heads Back To Oscar Race As ‘Richard Jewell’
Has Triumphant AFI Fest Premiere In Hollywood. By Pete Hammond, Deadline, November
21, 2019
If it is an awards season, the name Clint Eastwood can’t be
too far away. And so it is yet again as another Eastwood movie has just thrown
its hat in the ring. Richard Jewell had a rousing AFI Fest premiere Wednesday
night at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, as well as a SAG Nominating
Committee screening at Harmony Gold followed by a Q&A that drew standing
ovations for Eastwood and the man he cast as Jewell, Paul Walter Hauser. There
also was big applause for co-stars Kathy Bates, who plays Jewell’s mother,
Bobbi; Sam Rockwell as his lawyer, Watson Bryant; and Jon Hamm, who plays Tom
Shaw (a fictional name representing a number of FBI agents). The real Watson
Bryant and Bobbi Jewell were also among those in attendance at the premiere and
after party.
The four-time Oscar winner for producing and directing Best
Picture winners Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby should be back in the heart
of the game with Richard Jewell, a very compelling true story of the 1996
Atlanta Olympics security guard who initially was hailed a hero for discovering
a bomb in Centennial Park and saving many lives before it exploded. But he
later was named a suspect in the bombing by the FBI, which desperately needed
to find one considering the Games had just begun and pressure was on. Local
paper The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also is depicted as being pressured to
be first in reporting Jewell as a suspect as this movie finds both the FBI and
the media culpable in targeting Jewell. His life nearly was destroyed before he
was completely exonerated 88 days after the investigation began.
Of course there often is controversy with any fact-based
movie — more on that later — but this film puts Eastwood back in the kind of
true-life story he has been attracted to lately with films about complex heroes
such as American Sniper, Sully and now Richard Jewell. I wouldn’t be surprised
to see the December 13 Warner Bros release in the Best Picture Oscar race, as
well as several other categories including Directing for Eastwood — who at 89
could become certainly one of the oldest, if not the oldest Best Director
nominee ever. He is astonishing, no other word for it, and all of his actors
had nothing but praise for him Wednesday night.
His long time film editor Joel Cox, who told me Eastwood
wants to keep working behind the camera until he is at least 100, said he was
hoping to get the filmmaker to agree to let young directors come on their sets
and observe, just to get an idea of how moviemaking should be done. Cox, who
edited the movie as filming continued, said they delivered it to Warner Bros
this week (it was finished just two days ago) — exactly five and a half months
after starting production. The studio wanted it as a centrepiece of its Oscar
contenders, which also include Joker. Well, Eastwood has given it to them.
The legendary actor-director told me at the Hollywood
Roosevelt after party that he has been chasing the Jewell story for years and
sparked to Billy Ray’s screenplay, which is based on a Marie Brenner Vanity
Fair article as well as the book Suspect. First they had it set up at Fox, but
an executive there deep-sixed it. Time went by and in 2018, after Disney bought
Fox, it was revived again (the exec who killed it was gone). But new studio
head Alan Horn couldn’t make it work there, so the project suddenly was able to
land in the lap of Eastwood’s main studio, Warner Bros, after he decided to
give it just one more try.
Everyone looking for justice and doing the right thing
should be thankful he didn’t give up because the sad fact is that Jewell was a
true hero, but the label put on him in unfortunate circumstances still has
people thinking he was the bomber (Eric Rudolph confessed to the crime six
years later). As Eastwood said at the end of the Q&A, this was something
that needed to be corrected and fully exonerates him once again in a way only
movies can do. “I think it is a great American tragedy that everyone kind of went
after him,” the filmmaker said. “I realized how it happened. It was the first
time Atlanta had such a huge thing like the Olympics, and all of a sudden in
three days they have this horrible bombing, and they have to get somebody. But
everybody just sold out — they sold out and didn’t even offer him the basics of
the American system. The FBI and a lot of the media were unkind, and it shows
good people can do bad things. Richard Jewell was a kind person and he got a
bad deal.” Eastwood also noted that he’s happy the city is going to put a
plaque in honor of Jewell (who died of heart failure in 2007) at Centennial
Park, but he wants more. “That’s great, but I would like a street named after
him. He deserves better. It’s a story worth telling. I wanted this picture in
the worst way. I sold a lot of souls to the devil to get it made.”
At one time Jonah Hill (who has a producing credit along
with others including Leonardo DiCaprio) was attached to play Jewell, but from
the moment Eastwood said he saw Hauser in a small supporting role in I, Tonya,
he knew he had found his Richard Jewell. The Best Actor and Supporting Actor
races are ridiculously crowded this year, but it seems inconceivable that
Hauser can be denied a slot. He simply is brilliant, completely inhabiting this
role. Plus he looks like he could be Jewell’s brother. It is a remarkable
performance.
The whole cast also is great including Bates, who could find
herself in the Supporting Actress lineup. The SAG crowd loved her. And then
there is Rockwell, who again is superb in another unforgettable turn. He won
the Supporting Oscar two years ago for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing,
Missouri, and was nominated last year for his smaller role as George W. Bush in
Vice, the part that Eastwood says really caught his eye since he knew Bush a
little and thought Rockwell captured him perfectly. This category is way
overloaded, but I don’t see how Rockwell doesn’t make it three nominations in a
row. For Hauser and Rockwell in particular, this is not a prediction on my
part, it is an order, Academy members.
There is usually controversy with any true-life story, as we
saw Wednesday when the AFI Fest had to pull The Banker from its closing-night
world premiere slot that was scheduled for tonight. Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman
also has raised eyebrows in some quarters about the truthfulness of how Jimmy
Hoffa’s death is portrayed as fact in the film. And as for Richard Jewell,
there is already a proactive campaign being launched against it by Kevin Riley,
editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who send a detailed email to
various news outlets including Deadline on Monday, cautioning about certain
things he has heard are in the movie that might put his paper in a bad light.
He says he will see the film when it comes out but wants to
make journalists aware of AJC‘s concerns — most notably surrounding Kathy
Scruggs, the reporter played in the film by Olivia Wilde who broke the story
that the FBI was looking at Jewell as a suspect. The film clearly suggests she
is trading sexual favors with the FBI agent played by Hamm in order to get the
inside info. This also is intimated in the book Suspect, one of the sources the
film’s script is based on as well. Riley says it is not true (though he was not
at the paper in 1996) and is upset that it is being portrayed this way,
especially in the #MeToo era. Scruggs unfortunately is not around to speak for
herself. She died in 2001 at age 41.
Obviously there will be much more to come on this film, but
for me a real mark of how Eastwood, Ray and this cast nailed it ultimately is
just what the title indicates; it is finally the story of Richard Jewell and
what happened to him at the hands of people who succumbed to the pressures of
the time. Bobbi Jewell was a witness to it all, and she effusively told me as
she was leaving the Roosevelt Party last night that this movie got it right.
Clint Eastwood’s ‘Richard Jewell’ earns an ovation as it
enters awards race. By GLENN WHIPP, LA Times, Entertainment, NOV. 21, 2019
Richard Jewell, the security guard who alerted police about
a suspicious backpack that eventually exploded, saving the lives of countless
people at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, only to then be accused of planting the
bomb himself, will soon receive a plaque in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park.
“I’d like a street named after him,” Clint Eastwood said
after the AFI Fest world premiere of his film “Richard Jewell.” “He deserves
even more.”
With “Richard Jewell,” Eastwood has given the late security
guard something bigger than a plaque or a namesake street. Eastwood has crafted
a monument to Jewell’s heroism and a portrait of its shattering aftermath, an
arc Eastwood calls a “great American tragedy.”
Eastwood began shooting “Richard Jewell” in late June and
wrapped in August, enabling Warner Bros. to get it in theaters on Dec. 13. The
film could do well commercially, though unlike “American Sniper” or “Sully” —
other Eastwood films depicting the dark side of celebrated heroes — it doesn’t
have a star. Comedic actor Paul Walter Hauser plays Jewell (Jonah Hill was
originally attached), and he makes the most of his first starring role, playing
the title character as a kind of principled Paul Blart sad sack, an ordinary
man who did an extraordinary thing.
The late-arriving “Richard Jewell” faces a challenge to gain
awards season traction, though the movie certainly won’t have a hard time
generating publicity. Billy Ray’s screenplay, based on a 1997 Vanity Fair
article and a new book on the case, hammers its theme of an unpretentious
Southern man, a Baptist who loves guns, hunting and his mama (Kathy Bates),
being unfairly targeted by “two of the most powerful forces in the world” — the
United States government and an unscrupulous media.
The editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has already
lashed out at the movie, defending the paper’s reporting on the case. That
reporting came under fire at the time, though, with the American Journalism
Review criticising the Journal-Constitution for triggering a full-scale media
frenzy with scanty sourcing.
“I find it appalling, quite frankly, at how quickly
everybody leapt to finger this guy,” the late David Shaw, the Times’ Pulitzer
Prize-winning media reporter, said in a 1996 interview. “To write about it in
the context of a larger story about the explosion, down in the sixth or eighth
paragraph —that’s one thing. But to bring out a special edition and start
leading your newscast and putting out Page 1 stories on it — that’s over the
top.”
But “Richard Jewell” is also over the top in some respects,
particularly the way in which Olivia Wilde plays the Atlanta paper’s police
reporter Kathy Scruggs. She’s written as an unethical journalist who sleeps
with an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) for information (or maybe because he looks like
Jon Hamm ... or maybe all of the above). She’s also callous, flippant, a boozer
and only bothers to check the facts of her reporting weeks after the story
runs.
Additionally, she seems to have the power of invisibility
and the improbable ability to develop a conscience shortly after praying to God
that the bomber be "[expletive] interesting.”
Wilde did not attend the Q&A Wednesday night.
Joining Eastwood at the invite-only screening, which was
concurrent with a public unveiling at the Chinese Theater, were Hauser, Sam
Rockwell, Bates and Hamm. Bates earned a standing ovation from the audience,
made up mostly of Screen Actors Guild members. They rose for Eastwood too,
though as the 89-year-old filmmaker noted: “I’m an old-timer. A senior citizen.
They have to treat me well.”
Rockwell, funny and fierce as Jewell’s attorney, might be
the movie’s best chance at awards season success, given his recent roll with
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “Vice.” Asked how he cast
Rockwell, Eastwood replied that he thought he was great portraying George W.
Bush in “Vice,” though he admitted he “didn’t see the whole movie.”
Eastwood tried to make “Richard Jewell” for four years
before it came together this spring. “I wanted this picture in the worst way,”
he said, wrapping up the evening. “I sold a lot of souls to the devil.” We’ll
know in a few weeks how that bargain turns out.
Clint Eastwood’s ‘Richard Jewell’ Debuts at AFI Fest, Paul
Walter Hauser Enters the Oscar Race. By MARC MALKIN, Variety, NOVEMBER 21, 2019
Even before “Richard Jewell” premiered Wednesday night at
AFI Fest, Clint Eastwood’s real-life drama was part of this year’s Oscar
conversation.
The 40th film directed by the 89-year-old Hollywood legend
tells the true story of Richard Jewell, the security guard who was targeted by
the FBI as the prime suspect in the bombing in Centennial Olympic Park during
the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
At first, Jewell became an overnight hero
for discovering the knapsack containing the pipe bombs, but an overzealous FBI
investigation quickly zeroed in on him as the main suspect in the bombing. A
report identifying Jewell in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution sparked an
international media circus that destroyed his name in the court of public
opinion.
The story of an underdog facing off against the government
and seemingly unethical media should play well with Academy voters. Hauser’s
portrayal and transformation (Eastwood urged him to pack on the pounds for the
role) for Jewell could earn sympathy and help attract Oscar support as well.
Jewell was never charged with anything and was eventually cleared of any
wrongdoing. The real bomber was Eric Robert Rudolph, who was convicted of the
bombing, as well as similar attacks of abortion clinics and a lesbian bar.
This year’s best actor category is shaping up to be one of
the most competitive races. While there are frontrunners like Adam Driver
(“Marriage Story”), Leonard DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”), Joaquin
Phoenix (“Joker”), Robert De Niro (“The Irishman) and Jonathan Pryce (“The Two
Popes”), there are many actors who deserve to be recognized. If only there
could be more than five nominees…
However, Eastwood could also be dinged by Academy members
for the film’s negative portrayal of journalism (including Olivia Wilde as a
reporter who appears in the film trading sex for a tip from her FBI source,
played by Jon Hamm) during a time when President Donald Trump continually
disparages the news media as “fake news” and as an “enemy of the people.”
Eastwood’s association with the GOP could also turn off blue Hollywood as it
gears up for the 2020 election.
Eastwood has twice taken home Oscars for best picture and
best director for “Unforgiven” and “Million Dollar Baby.” Actors in his films
have been nominated several times with wins going to Gene Hackman
(“Unforgiven”) and Tim Robbins and Sean Penn for “Mystic River.” Most recently,
Bradley Cooper earned a best actor nod for “American Sniper.”
At last night’s premiere, excitement and
anticipation for the Warner Bros. film was palpable, both on the red carpet and
inside the theater. Even before the movie began, Eastwood received a standing
ovation when he was introduced by AFI Fest president Bob Gazzale. Whether the
enthusiasm for the movie continues to Oscar Sunday remains to be seen.
Clint
Eastwood Atlanta bombing film criticised over 'sex-for-tips' reporter.
Newspaper
says portrayal of reporter in Richard Jewell film undermines confidence in
media and law enforcement agencies. Andrew Pulver, The Guardian, Thu 21 Nov
2019
Clint
Eastwood’s new film Richard Jewell has been criticised for its portrayal of one
of the key journalists involved in reporting on the 1996 Atlanta bombing case
on which the film is based. Jewell was a
security guard who discovered the bomb and led bystanders away; he was investigated
by the FBI for several weeks but never charged.
After two further bombings,
Eric Robert Rudolph was identified as a suspect, and convicted in 2005. The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution controversially named him three days later.
Kevin G
Riley, editor in chief of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said in a letter to
the Wrap that the film’s suggestion that its reporter Kathy Scruggs traded sex
for information from an FBI agent was not true, and that the film’s intention
was to undermine confidence in the media and law enforcement agencies.
He added:
“This is essential because the underlying theme of the movie is that the FBI
and press are not to be trusted. Yet the way the press is portrayed often
differs from reality … It remains [crucial] to have solid information when
covering demanding stories. It’s also ironic that a film purporting to hold the
media to account disregards such crucial facts.”
Scruggs, who
died in 2001, was a police reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and
obtained the information that the FBI were investigating Jewell for the bombing
at the 1996 Olympics that killed one and injured more than 100 others. In the
film she is played by Olivia Wilde and her FBI contact by Jon Hamm.
Despite past
criticism, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has always defended its reporting
on Jewell as accurate according to the information it had, and refused to
settle with him after Jewell sued for libel. Jewell died in 2007, but his claim
was finally rejected by the Georgia court of appeals in 2011.
The film’s
producing studio Warner Bros has been contacted for comment.
Riley said:
“There is no evidence that this ever happened, and … it’s offensive and deeply
troubling in the #MeToo era.”
'Richard
Jewell': Film Review | AFI 2019. Hollywood Reporter, by Todd McCarthy, Nov 20th
2019 Another fine
Eastwood film about a man with greatness thrust upon him.
Clint
Eastwood's latest tells the true story of a security guard initially celebrated
as a hero for saving lives in the bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics, then
vilified when the press reported he was a suspect.
Clint
Eastwood is quite partial to accidental real-life heroes these days and he’s
found a good, if unprepossessing one, in Richard Jewell, a lively and
none-too-flattering look at the “media lynching” of a sad-sack security guard
the press decided was responsible for a deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta
Summer Olympic Games.
The
director’s last five films — American Sniper, Sully, The 15:17 to Paris, The
Mule and now this one — have focused on ordinary men doing extraordinary
things, only to have them scrutinized, for better or worse, in the aftermath.
In format
and focus, the new film emerges as a close sibling to the aviation drama Sully,
which also centered on a man who became a hero by doing his job but whose
actions were similarly, if less severely, picked apart by the press and
authorities. Sully raked in $241 million worldwide and, while its box office
might have benefited a bit from a guy named Tom Hanks in the lead role, the new
pic’s concern with the vindication of an innocent man provides a similar
dramatic trajectory that’s also quite satisfying. The Warner Bros. attraction
world-premiered at AFI Fest in Los Angeles, bows nationally on Dec. 13 and
should perform well with general audiences everywhere, but perhaps especially
in the South.
Most
Hollywood films about journalism since All the President’s Men 43 years ago
have taken the free press’ side, portraying it as a scruffy if noble
institution essential to the well-being of democracy. Eastwood and screenwriter
Billy Ray (The Hunger Games, Captain Phillips) here take a rather different
view of the Fourth Estate, portraying it as reckless, corrupt and immoral. At
the center of its frenzy is the hapless and clueless Jewell, an overweight
oddball who may well be the least likely leading man in any of Eastwood’s 40 —
count ‘em, 40 — films as a director, but Paul Walter Hauser makes the most of
it.
Once
intended as a vehicle for Jonah Hill, hence his inclusion here as an executive
producer, the movie greatly benefits from the title role being played by a
relative unknown; the casting enhances the anonymous Everyman nature of this
ordinary fellow, who, in classic Preston Sturges fashion, has misfortune, and
then a certain measure of greatness, thrust upon him.
The nicely
balanced script devotes just enough time at the outset to sketching an
impression of Jewell as a mama’s boy loser and outcast to arouse slight
suspicions that he could be a time bomb waiting to go off. A devoted student of
the law — “I study the penal code every night,” he boasts — Jewell is also a
video arcade regular who occasionally gets himself in trouble or loses security
jobs out of over-zealousness, like busting frat boys in their rooms; “I don’t
want any Mickey Mousing on this campus,” he proclaims, in a misguided burst of
self-important authority. A once-upon-a-time cop, he boasts of a huge gun
collection and spends a lot of time at the shooting range. He lives with his
mom, Bobi (a wonderful Kathy Bates), who loves him and can lift his spirits by
saying things like, “You’re still a good guy warding off the bad guys, aren’t
ya?”
He is, in
short, a non-entity, a man destined to live his life without making a mark on
the world. But fate dictates otherwise. On the evening of July 27, a big crowd
is enjoying a musical performance in Centennial Olympic Park when a warning
call comes in about an imminent bombing. Jewell zealously jumps into action,
beginning to clear the area where he has noticed a suspicious backpack. A pipe
bomb goes off minutes later, killing one and injuring 111 (another died of
incidental causes), but Jewell is widely lauded for his quick action, which
prevented many more from being hurt or killed.
But after
receiving initial thanks for his response to the emergency, this accidental
hero soon sees his applause going quiet. A disgruntled former boss calls the
FBI with his suspicions about Jewell, and a profile quickly takes shape of a
misfit who triggers such a tragedy with the express purpose of then receiving
public acclaim as a savior; it’s the “fake hero” syndrome. From here on, FBI
honcho Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) is convinced they’ve got their man in their sights —
and, in a development that’s already stirring dispute and controversy, the film
shows Shaw receiving sexual favors from real-life (but now deceased) Atlanta
Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (a raucously entertaining Olivia
Wilde) in exchange for a bombshell tip.
From this
point, Jewell’s life becomes a living hell, with the media on his case day and
night and the FBI invading the family apartment; the young man’s extensive gun
collection only furthers the feds’ conviction that “he fits the profile.” What
he needs is a good attorney, but a guy like Jewell has to take what he can get,
and the man hustling for the job rates perhaps only slightly higher in his
professional field than Jewell does in his. Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) may
not be another Johnnie Cochran or Gloria Allred, but he sees that the poor guy
is being railroaded and commits to clearing his name.
The mob of
reporters covering the story resembles a plague of locusts, with any little
tidbit being transformed into big news as the media tries to finger a culprit.
Jewell, along with his mother, must endure this combination of attack and
deprivation for three months until, finally, the FBI realizes that, from a
purely logistical point of view, the young man couldn’t have physically pulled
off what they believed he did. The reality lay elsewhere, but that is another
story.
The film
loses a bit of steam in the final stretch, but there is climactic strength in
Jewell’s brewing sense of purpose and self-respect, which contrasts with the
abiding conviction of Hamm’s FBI man that Jewell remains “guilty as hell.”
Eastwood echoes notions that have surfaced in his earlier movies about the gap
between American ideals and the more troubling reality of life.
All the
principal actors are ideally cast and seem very keyed-up for their parts here;
Wilde and Hamm come on very strong in competitive try-and-stop-me roles,
Rockwell provides all manner of disgruntled but finally energized determination
to fight and win, and Bates dabs her maternal role with lovely shadings that go
well beyond what’s in the script. But it’s Hauser who carries the film in a
rare and unlikely role, that of a presumed loser in life (the man did die just
a few years later, at 44) who suffered very unwanted attention — but who, when
he needed to, found a way to rise to the occasion. Rated R, 131 minutes
AFI Fest
Film Review: Clint Eastwood’s ‘Richard Jewell’ by Peter Debruge, Variety, NOV20,
2019
Clint
Eastwood goes after two of the most powerful forces in contemporary America —
the FBI and the media — in this true story of a hero falsely accused of being a
terrorist.
Can you
recall who was responsible for 1996’s Centennial Olympic Park bombing? Three
days after the incident, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (accurately) reported
that Richard Jewell, the security guard who discovered a backpack containing
three pipe bombs and tipped the police, sparing the lives of innumerable
concertgoers, had become the FBI’s main suspect. But was it right to run the
story? Evidently, CNN had uncovered the same information (that Jewell was being
investigated) but chose to wait. Once the AJC ran it, the news spread fast,
turning Jewell from a hero to a villain in the public’s eyes.
Clint
Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell” intends to clear the man’s name once and for all.
But “Richard Jewell” is a movie, and movies are notoriously inaccurate, taking
what’s euphemistically referred to as “dramatic license” to make stories more
entertaining. In this case, at a time when politicians have stoked public
distrust of news media, and when news media have punched back by holding
politicians to even stricter standards of truthfulness, does anybody want to
hear what the “Hollywood elites” have to say about Richard Jewell?
The answer:
A good story is a good story, and Eastwood knows how to tell a good story. With
“Richard Jewell,” he and screenwriter Billy Ray — drawing from the Vanity Fair
article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell,” by Marie Brenner —
go about it in a broad and often too-simplistic sort of way, treating the “hero
bomber” (played by Paul Walter Hauser in his first starring role) as a lovable
loser. Still, the result is undeniably compelling, a kind of modern-day “Ace in
the Hole” and a populist reflection of the public’s disdain for journalists and
government alike, as told by a filmmaker (and let’s not forget: former mayor of
Carmel, Calif.) with his finger on the pulse.
Without a
major movie star in the lead, “Richard Jewell” will likely land in the $35
million range, like disappointments “J. Edgar” and “The 15:17 to Paris” before
it, rather than the nine-digit territory of far-better biopics “Sully” and
“American Sniper,” though all five projects demonstrate a remarkable output for
a director operating well into his 80s. Even the bad movies (and when Eastwood
is bad, he’s awful) reflect a consistency of focus. He’s an underdog’s
director, skeptical of the system, firmly on the side of the falsely accused
and completely unpretentious in his delivery.
Say what you
will about Eastwood’s performance at the 2012 Republican National Convention
(when he scolded Obama via an empty chair next to him onstage), but “Richard
Jewell” does not come across as an old, out-of-touch white guy venting his
frustrations with a specific political party. Instead, it reflects a thoughtful
citizen wondering how we got to this point. Retracing Eastwood’s career as
filmmaker, he clearly abhors nothing more than the abuse of power. Here, the
director challenges two of the most powerful institutions in modern society,
seizing on an especially disgraceful moment when the pressures on law
enforcement (to get its man) and the pressures on news organizations (to get
the scoop) ruined the reputation of an “innocent guy” (as director Michael
Moore identified him in “The Big One”).
It has often
been said that one’s reputation is determined not by one’s actions but by
others’ perceptions. In Jewell’s case, extrapolating from the fact the FBI was
investigating him, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution decided that he fit a
certain profile: “This profile generally includes a frustrated white man who is
a former police officer, member of the military or police ‘wanna-be’ who seeks
to become a hero,” wrote AJC reporters Kathy Scruggs (played here by Olivia
Wilde as an aggressive, unethical newshound) and Ron Martz (David Shae, who
barely registers as a character). But do “lone bombers” fitting that
description really exist?
“Richard
Jewell” isn’t terribly generous to any of its characters, and though the
filmmakers believe their protagonist to be innocent, as played by Hauser (a
tubby character actor recently seen as a racist ignoramus in “BlacKkKlansman”
and a bumbling bodyguard in “I, Tonya”), he comes off as a thickheaded goober,
a glorified Paul Blart type. In 1996, while working for campus police at
Piedmont College in Demorest, Ga., he was reprimanded for pulling cars over on
the highway. After being dismissed from that job, he took his above-and-beyond
enthusiasm to his next gig, working as a security guard for the AT&T
Pavilion at the Summer Olympics, where the live-at-home schlub saw himself as a
deputy member of law enforcement.
Sure, it’s
pathetic to watch Jewell buddying up to the real cops, but that desperate
everything-to-prove attitude of his is presumably what saved lives when he
stumbled on a suspicious package near the sound-and-light tower just after
midnight on July 27. The FBI was on the scene, but agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm,
playing that handsome-on-the-outside, sordid-underneath dynamic that suited him
so well in “Mad Men”) was distracted, flirting with Scruggs, working her
contacts — and her sex appeal, the movie implies — for a lead.
As in
“Sully,” when Eastwood showed the crash landing multiple times from various
perspectives, the bomb goes off once, only to echo later in Jewell’s dreams and
in flashback — a surefire way to juice up a story that’s mostly about procedure
from the incident on out. Early in his professional career, Jewell made friends
with an eccentric attorney, Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell), and he’s the one
Jewell calls when the FBI brings him in for questioning.
Bryant is a
Libertarian, as indicated by the “I fear government more than I fear terrorism”
sign in his office, and Jewell’s case ignites a righteous fire in him,
redeeming his sad solo law practice. In one scene, intercut with footage of
Michael Johnson breaking the 200-meter speed record at the 1996 Olympics,
Eastwood shows Bryant timing the walk between the bomb site and the pay phone
where an anonymous 911 call was placed — a fancy bit of filmmaking meant to
underscore Jewell’s innocence.
Richard, who
lives at home with his mother, Bobi (Kathy Bates), just wants to be helpful,
volunteering to assist in any way he can the FBI agents who search his home,
while reporters from national news agencies camp out in the parking lot.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Jewell remains polite and accommodating, which
makes him look even more foolish at times. Supporting actors Wilde, Hamm, Bates
and Rockwell play their roles at the brink of caricature, and yet, under
Eastwood’s aegis, they don’t cross into outright parody.
The director
is known for tossing less experienced actors in with the professionals — as in
“The 15:17 to Paris,” where the trio who thwarted a terrorist attack played
themselves, badly. In “Richard Jewell,” it works brilliantly, allowing Hauser
to shine in a role movie star Jonah Hill once intended to play (he remains
involved as a producer).
The real
Jewell died in 2007 — a small fortune richer after making settlements in libel
cases with NBC, the New York Post and his former Piedmont employers — which
makes it possible for Hauser to interpret him as he pleases. The actor projects
a goofy, good-natured bewilderment, off which Rockwell plays the indignant
justice seeker. Wilde’s former colleagues have raised objections about how she
is portrayed, especially the suggestion that she slept with an FBI agent to get
the story, and it’s a thankless part, rendered ridiculous during a press
conference in which she sobs in the background while Bobi comes to her son’s
defence.
So, to
return to the original question, who was the individual responsible for the
bombing? Six years after Jewell was interrogated, the FBI finally caught the
culprit, a man named Eric Rudolph, who conducted at least three other bombings
(of a lesbian bar and two abortion clinics) subsequent to Centennial Park.
Meanwhile, in the decades since, the trial-by-media phenomenon has only gotten
worse, and our justice system seems all the more fallible. Maybe Eastwood is
right to show Jewell as some kind of guinea pig. Just don’t assume that the
movie’s any more accurate than the characters it critiques.
Reviewed at
Warner Bros. screening room, Burbank, Nov. 18, 2019. MPAA Rating: R.
Richard
Jewell Review: Clint Eastwood's Best in Years
Clint
Eastwood’s latest film, Richard Jewell, is his best in years. And it's anchored
by a trio of powerful performances. Den
of Geek, Don Kaye, Nov 21, 2019
Based on the
true story of the security guard who was at first praised for his heroic
actions during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing and then dragged
through the mud as a suspect, Richard Jewell is easily director Clint
Eastwood’s best film since 2006’s Letters from Iwo Jima. Although problematic
in some areas, the movie tells Jewell’s story in understated yet often
heart-rending terms, and is powered by knockout performances from Paul Walter
Houser as Jewell, Sam Rockwell as attorney C. Watson Bryant, and Kathy Bates as
Barbara "Bobi" Jewell--the proud and anguished mother.
Having just
premiered at AFI Fest, the film immediately establishes just who Jewell is: an
overweight yet generally good-hearted oddball who dreams of working in law
enforcement. He's a guy who spends his time reading the Georgia Penal Code
because he finds it interesting. In fact, his short-lived stint as a campus
police officer at a local college goes to his head as he pushes students around
and overreaches on his duties, leading to a dismissal that will come back to
haunt him years later.
Jewell is
working security on the night of July 27, 1996 at a concert in Centennial
Olympic Park, the public space built expressly for the Summer Olympics in
Atlanta. It is there he spies a suspicious backpack underneath a bench near the
base of a concert sound tower. Jewell alerts Georgia Bureau of Investigation
officers, who determine that the backpack is filled with explosives. At the
same time, a call comes into 911 from a male voice warning that the bomb will
go off within 30 minutes. But it’s just a few minutes after the call is made,
as Jewell and GBI officers are evacuating the park that the bomb explodes,
killing one person (a second, a news cameraman, dies of a heart attack) and injuring
111.
As it
becomes evident that more could have died, Jewell is at lauded as a hero for
his actions, interviewed on TV, and even offered a book deal. But then the dean
of the college where he worked calls the local FBI office, headed by Tom Shaw
(Jon Hamm), and informs them of Jewell’s troubling campus police stint.
Suddenly, Jewell fits the profile of the “false hero:” a lone, white male
desperate for attention and fame, interested in the law and weaponry, who may
have planted the bomb himself in order to make himself look like a hero by
rescuing as many as he can before it goes off. The suspicion soon lands at the
local newspaper where reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) is hungry for a
scoop. The resulting front page story leads to a devastating media feeding
frenzy around Jewell and his mother, all while the FBI attempts to entrap the
young man.
Eastwood’s
non-showy, uncluttered narrative style is enormously effective in Richard
Jewell, advancing the story in stark, clear terms while giving plenty of space
for the performances by the three stars. Houser, who played smaller yet similar
roles in BlackkKlansman and I, Tonya, is outstanding as Jewell. The script by
Billy Ray does not make a saint out of this simple, unassuming man: he is prone
to a bit of self-aggrandization and doesn’t know when to shut his mouth for his
own good, much to his attorney’s frustration. But he very clearly also wants to
do the right thing at all times, has a genuine passion for what he wants, and
an unconditional love for his mother. Houser's performance makes him instantly
empathetic as an ordinary guy thrust unexpectedly into overwhelming
circumstances.
Rockwell,
one of the very best actors out there right now, is also terrific as Bryant, an
avowed libertarian (he’s got a “I fear the government more than I fear
terrorism” sticker hanging above his desk) who’s also in over his head but
whose sense of righteousness is awakened by what the FBI is putting his client
through. His loyalty and friendship to Jewell never wavers, even as the latter
unwittingly plays into the government’s hands. Bates is enormously sympathetic,
adding nuance to a role that on the surface might seem somewhat
one-dimensional.
It’s with
the character of Scruggs that Eastwood, Ray, and Wilde run into serious
problems. There is no evidence that the real Scruggs, who died in 2001 at the
age of 42, traded sex for information with a law enforcement agent (Hamm’s
composite character), although that is what the film alleges. But even without
that troubling and superfluous wrinkle, Scruggs here is seen as scheming,
obnoxious, cruel, and overly ambitious--a caricature of not just a career woman
but a working journalist that is all too pointed itself in an age when the free
press is under attack from the government sworn by the Constitution to defend
it.
It’s true
that the media, along with that government (whose representation by Hamm is
more understated but just as villainous), had a lot to atone for in the case of
Richard Jewell--and to some degree did, with the Journal-Constitution later
publishing the story that helped chart a course for his exoneration. And
there’s certainly room to explore Scruggs’ motivations in pursuing the Jewell
lead so vociferously. But there has to be a better way than making the character
into all but a witch, and implying that she somehow represents her entire
profession.
It’s a
jarring and unfortunate note in an otherwise masterfully directed
movie--especially the first half. The bombing sequence is incredibly well
executed, a brilliantly sustained exercise in build-up and tension, and the
steady accumulation of details as Jewell’s situation worsens effectively blends
melodrama, humour and tragedy.
The second
half of the movie does begin to flag, however; many of the later scenes revolve
around Jewell, his mother, and Bryant sitting in the Jewells’ apartment,
barricaded from the media outside. There is a moment of triumph in the FBI
office where Jewell, his anger fully awakened at last, essentially reads the
riot act to Shaw and his cohorts, his often previously dull eyes flashing with
pain and fury. But lacking a truly cathartic climax, Richard Jewell just
gradually winds down.
Nevertheless,
its missteps don’t stop Richard Jewell from being an absorbing drama and
character study that is both moving and resonant. Its heavy-handed portrayal of
the press and government as the bad guys does not mitigate the fact that the
media and FBI did do wrong by Jewell (who died in 2007), and the film’s
essential message is an avowedly non-partisan one. At the age of 89, Clint
Eastwood is still capable of making remarkable films, and Richard Jewell is one
of them.
‘Richard
Jewell’: Review, Screen Daily, by Tim Grierson, 21 NOVEMBER 2019
Clint
Eastwood returns with a true-life story about the security guard wrongly
accused of being the Summer Olympics bomber.
Clint
Eastwood’s recent tributes to everyday American heroes continue with Richard
Jewell, a simplistic but effective drama about the security guard who saved
innumerable lives during the 1996 Summer Olympics bombing — only to find
himself become the primary suspect. Character actor Paul Walter Hauser presents
us with an insecure pushover who longed to be in law enforcement, and the
performance nicely captures the complexity of an uncommunicative, sometimes
exasperating main character. Sam Rockwell is superb as Jewell’s brusque lawyer,
and the entire film benefits from a muted wistfulness, which manages to convey
the injustice of what occurred without overselling the theatrics.
Premiering
at AFI Fest, this Warner Bros. offering will be released December 13 in the US,
moving to international markets in the new year. The 89-year-old Eastwood has
had recent success with similar true-life tales, such as 2014’s American Sniper ($547 million worldwide) and
Sully in 2016 ($241 million), but this latest film isn’t top-lined by an A-list
star, which may affect grosses.
As the 1996
Summer Olympics begin in Atlanta, Richard Jewell (Hauser) gets a job working
security, dreaming of someday becoming a policeman. During a celebration in
Centennial Park, he notices a suspicious backpack on the ground, alerting
authorities. Some of his colleagues think he’s over-reacting, but Jewell’s
instincts prove correct: It’s a bomb, and he and his fellow guards try to move
revellers out of the way before it goes off.
The
detonation ends up killing two people and injuring more than a hundred, and
Jewell is celebrated as a hero for his quick thinking since the casualties
could have been much worse. But soon after, the FBI, led by Agent Tom Shaw (Jon
Hamm), believes he fits the classic profile for a bomber. Suddenly under
investigation, Jewell turns to Watson Bryant (Rockwell), an unconventional
lawyer he befriended at a previous job.
In Jewell
(who died in 2007 at the age of 44), Eastwood sees another example of the
little guy at war with forces far more powerful than he is, and so it’s not
surprising that Richard Jewell is a smooth, straightforward procedural in which
Bryant helps restore Jewell’s reputation while taking on the FBI and a ravenous
media. (Olivia Wilde plays Kathy Scruggs, a ruthless, manipulative Atlanta
reporter who helps break the story that the Feds are eyeing Jewell for the
crime.)
Richard
Jewell makes a clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys, which
undercuts much hope of nuance. That said, Hauser (who appeared in I, Tonya and
BlacKkKlansman) manages to offer significant shading to Jewell so that we see
him for the troubled, flawed person he is. Mocked for his weight and lack of
intelligence, Jewell badly wants to be thought of as heroic, which Shaw
capitalises on by giving the false impression that they’re law-enforcement
peers, hoping to trick Jewell into giving up evidence that will help convict
him.
Hauser has a
difficult task, playing a not-very-bright man who is so passive and gullible
that he keeps digging himself into deeper trouble. (As Bryant will find out,
his client has some skeletons in his closet.) Jewell’s inflated sense of
himself and his milquetoast personality can be maddening, and Hauser and
Eastwood encourage us to get frustrated with their foolish protagonist. Unlike
the noble everymen of American Sniper and Sully, Jewell is far more helpless,
even pathetic. But that variation on Eastwood’s recent films actually gives
Richard Jewell its emotional heft — calmly, the movie documents how an innocent
man can be railroaded — and it provides Hauser and Rockwell an opportunity to
create an unlikely rapport between these two very different men. (One is
idealistic but naïve, while the other is bitter but savvy.) Rockwell is like an
attack dog as Bryant, who becomes a protective older brother for Jewell, and
while his righteous anger is pro forma for this kind of film, it’s also deeply
satisfying.
Hamm does
solid work as an underhanded FBI agent who is desperate to find the bomber
since this attack happened on his watch, while Wilde overdoes Scruggs’
coldblooded ambition. (She becomes a convenient boo-hiss symbol for a corrupt
media that sought to crucify Jewell after venerating him.) And Kathy Bates
brings real feeling to the thankless role of Jewell’s devoted mother Bobi. Like
Arturo Sandoval’s on-the-nose score, the Oscar-winning actress often clues the
audience in as to how they should be feeling about Jewell’s ordeal. Thankfully,
Eastwood’s sure grasp of this inherently compelling story mostly overcomes his
sentimental propensities.
