Introduction - An over looked Eastwood directed film - the true story of a security guard who saves lives, during a terror attack at the Atlanta Olympics 1996 - before he became the prime suspect.
Name of film: Richard Jewell
Year: 2019
Official Poster
Trailer
Review
Eastwood, especially in his later career, has taken to stories of underdogs, battling the system against miscarriages-of-justice. They are subtle films, nothing overwrought, slight even, but have an emotional pull - parables about the evils of big business or big government and the ordinary man/woman's stand against it.
This is a film about an overweight, loner - a man whose heart is as big as his body, still living with his loving mum, played by Kathy Bates. He is a true believer in the value of policing and doing things by the book.
His name is Richard Jewell - an extremely likeable and believable performance from Paul Walter Hauser.
During the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta, an extreme-right terrorist, Eric Rudolph set of a bomb at the city’s Centennial Park that killed two people and injured a hundred more - he was not caught until 2003. Causalities would have been higher, if Jewell hadn't spotted a backpack, overlooked by the regular police that he idolised. Jewell tried to move as many people away as possible, before the bomb exploded.
Slowly, the FBI decides that Richard, fits the profile of a man who deliberately plants bombs, to play the hero by finding them. Without any evidence, one FBI agent leaks his suspicions to a ruthless female journalist, played Olivia Wilde who will do anything, literally anything, for a story - soon the media and government are turning up the heat on a bewildered Richard and his anxious distressed mum. It’s exactly the same set up Eastwood’s Sully - a pilot hero who becomes a scapegoat for the NTSB.
This is the story that screenwriter, Billy Ray and Eastwood want to revive. Hauser is the heart-breakingly innocent guy – Bates is his distressed mum, moving from pride in her son, to disbelief as the tide turns against him and the media stake out her house. She is great.
Sam Rockwell gives a vivacious performance as Watson Bryant, a shambolic lawyer who takes up Jewell's cause. Jewell phones him when accused - Watson was the only one who treated him with dignity and humanity when they once worked in the same office.
Watson is a real figure, too, although apparently many more lawyers worked on this case in real life.
Here, he is portrayed as a maverick - he has a poster in his office - “I fear Government more than I fear terrorism.” Whether that is true or not, this film is about officials acting without evidence. This reviewer found the story completely absorbing and was rooting for Jewell and Watson - equal outsiders in different ways - with gusto.
If there are any faults in this movie, it is that Eastwood wants to portray the bad guys as ultra bad - real-life journalist, Kathy Scruggs has sex with sources to get her story. She is portrayed as a slut. She is dead and can’t sue, if untrue. FBI man, Tom Shaw, played by handsome John Hamm, a fictional composite of the actual officers, is portrayed as dull and stupid, acting only on misguided, fumbling instinct - perhaps he is too much of a caricature.
Hauser is the star here and keeps the film on track: poignant, lonely and vulnerable. He eventually did achieve his dream of becoming a cop, got married and died young of kidney failure..
His mum still looks after Watson's children.
Jewell's heroic legacy has been the myth of popular culture, the ten-episode drama Deadly Games, the 2020 season of the anthology series Manhunt, were based on him.
Bates was nominated for best supporting actress 2020 - but Eastwood's film received only average reviews at the time. This reviewer cannot see why. It's not a stone cold classic but it is a fascinating story well told.
My favourite scene - Lawyer Sam Rockwell gives Olivia Wilde, the dressing down she deserves.
Number of SUBs out of 10 - 7
If you want to find out more about us click here - https://linktr.ee/StickUpBoys or give our main account a follow @stickupboys on hive!
Thanks for reading my review, always up for comments and a chat about films and TV.
