Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Richard Jewell (2019)
Americans were shocked in 1996 when a bomb exploded at the Atlanta Summer Olympics, killing two and injuring many more. In an era when bad news occurred less regularly in the homeland, the media seized the story and ran. A security guard, Richard Jewell, was initially acclaimed a hero for alerting police to the suspicious and soon deadly backpack he discovered under a bench. And then he became the villain when word leaked that the FBI regarded him as a person of interest in the case.
Director Clint Eastwood dramatizes the scenario with his latest film, Richard Jewell. Given Eastwood’s political proclivities, it’s easy to spot an agenda: The media are a pack of jackals; the FBI is corrupt; leaks to news outlets are bad.
Eastwood embodies his message through the libertarian lawyer who defends Jewell, Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell). In case we don’t know where he stands, Bryant’s office is furnished with a sign proclaiming: “I Fear the Government More than I Fear Terrorists.”
Fortunately, screenwriter Billy Ray is more nuanced. In his screenplay, the FBI genuinely believes in Jewell’s guilt and with good reason. Jewell’s Barney Fife conduct on the night of the bombing waved many red flags. He fits a profile built from similar cases involving lone bomber-cop wannabes seeking validation for their disappointing lives by creating an opportunity for their own heroism. The mistake, according to the screenplay, was when an FBI agent whispered Jewell’s name into the ear of a sexually provocative reporter from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde). Scruggs, an otherwise untalented writer whose brazen chutzpah opens doors (and men’s zippers), is chasing a front-page story regardless of the human cost. But even her character eventually strikes a sympathetic note.
As depicted with enormous sympathy by Paul Walter Hauser, Jewell is a person for whom it’s easy to feel sorry. He’s morbidly obese and lives with his unconditionally loving mom (Kathy Bates). He speaks, beneath the averted eyes of a boy who has been bullied, in a molasses-thick Southern drawl. He’s not too bright but dutiful to a dangerous degree. While working security at a private college, he pulled over speeders on the highway despite having no jurisdiction. He was once a sheriff’s deputy and was once arrested for impersonating an officer. His life’s objective is law enforcement and he’s a miserable failure, reduced to standing watch over the sound board at the Olympic concert stage. Even after becoming a person of interest, he has to be restrained by his angry attorney from assisting the FBI’s investigation.
It’s a terrific performance by Hauser in a story that revolves around the irony of a man imbued with respect for authority who becomes the target of authority and—yes, it’s a true story—ends the film (and his life) in a policeman’s uniform. Jewell got his wish before dying, age 44; the film suggests his heart problems were triggered by the stress of the investigation but complications from diabetes are at least as likely.
Eastwood moves the story along efficiently, incorporating his characters into the horizontally lined archival TV news footage from 1996. It’s a gripping two-hour-plus production, even though anyone who recalls the incident already knows the ending. The real culprit was caught—a self-styled adherent of the far-right “militia” movement.
