A sharp docudrama about a much maligned hero.
Richard Jewell
Grade: A-
Director: Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven)
Screenplay: Billy Ray (Shattered Glass, Captain Phillips)) from Marie Brenner magazine article
Cast: Paul Walter Hauser (Late Night), Sam Rockwell (Jojo Rabbit)
Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hr 9 min
By: John DeSando
“There’s a bomb in Centennial Park. You have thirty minutes.” Richard Jewell (Paul Walther Hauser).
“Richard Jewell” is a docudrama among the best this year and any year. Director Clint Eastwood has a gift for depicting ordinary men of every kind heroically under stress (think recently of American Sniper, The Mule, and Sully). The titular hero is a schlubby security guard (“I study the penal code every night”) at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games with a heavy southern accent, ready to be profiled as a bomber. But he isn’t a bomber.
Eastwood and writer Billy Ray take a long time to establish Jewell as a nice but seemingly dense character ripe for the FBI’s profiling. As the character develops, he is much brighter than he appears, and his stereotypical affection for his mom (Kathy Bates) is genuine rather than a support for the perception of him as a candy-assed momma’s boy. Hauser is so good at enlisting our affection despite the good-ol’ boy cliché that he should be nominated.
Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde), the Atlanta Journal-Constitution fiery reporter, who breaks the news about the FBI’s interest in Jewell as bomber, is depicted as a go getter who would be willing to sleep with her informants. Whether true or not, the noise surrounding the sexist nature of the role is warranted; sadly, the real Scruggs is unable to defend herself due to death. Her coming on to FBI’s Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) does nothing to advance the plot and is a gratuitous mistake even if it could be proven.
Although “Richard Jewell” could stand accused of being a shout out of Eastwood’s conservative nature, specifically denigrating media and federal government agencies, that orientation shouldn’t be a part of any evaluation. Regardless, the film does the magical entertaining trick of making audiences move to the edge of their chairs even knowing he will be released from suspicion.
Besides Hauser’s outstanding performance as Jewell, Sam Rockwell’s as his lawyer, Watson Bryant, is worthy of an Oscar nomination. Less manic than his usual roles, this one shows a brainy but eccentric attorney with heart just below the surface. Rockwell makes the film tense, light, and believable.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
