MOVIE REVIEW by Lucas Allen: ‘Richard Jewell,’ a look at heroism

Richard Jewell
(Warner Bros. Pictures)

By Lucas Allen

Though he has famously played anti-heroes on screen, director Clint Eastwood soldiers on this past decade giving the audience dramatic, riveting stories of good people in explosive situations. Last year, he worked twice as hard with “The 15:17 to Paris” and “The Mule” despite working with lesser quality material. This year, he delivers another true-life tale of heroism, but it comes with a price, in “Richard Jewell.” The movie is written by Billy Ray from a Vanity Fair article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell, ” by Marie Brenner.
During the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, one night, there’s a music festival held in the city’s Centennial Park. One of the guys working security is a freelance guard, Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser), who took the job after years of not holding a job for long. When he spots a bag under a bench that turns out to have a bomb inside, he uses his quick thinking to get many of the pedestrians away from the site before the explosion. The next day, he’s called a national hero, especially by the city of Atlanta, much to the excitement of his mother, Bobi (Kathy Bates).
However, a tip to FBI agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) says that Jewell’s profile matches that of the unknown terrorist. Then word gets to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, where ruthless reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) makes it her personal mission to make it her story. Soon enough, the investigation brands Jewell a criminal and an ongoing target of the media. To try to clear his name, he turns to his friend Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) to be his personal defense attorney. He ends up in the spotlight for better and for worse.
It seems evident that Eastwood was turning this story into a timely response to today’s fear-mongering in media and culture. Though social media and mass media today can fuel that kind of judgment, news media back in the day like television and newspaper can dictate people’s opinions. It’s a well-written and very thought-out approach to the story that’s also an eye-opening experience. Of course, there is the questionable choice of portraying both the FBI and the newspaper reporters as the villains that you’ve heard in the news recently. But if that doesn’t bother you, it will not detract from the overall experience.
One thing that’s isn’t questionable is the importance of the main character. The movie manages to give us a character like Jewell as a simple, likable person you can see yourself easily befriending. When he goes through the ordeal, you sympathize with him and feel the emotional pain coming from him. Eastwood is great at being respectful to the real heroes behind the headlines.
Like any good Eastwood-directed film, the acting is certainly on par especially from some well-known actors. Hauser is exceptional as a simple-minded, likable character with a big heart and light-hearted personality. Rockwell adds energy and humor to his character, while Bates gives her character an emotional intensity especially in that press conference scene. Despite their questionable characterization, both Hamm and Wilde are terrific and entertaining to watch.
There’s so much sadness and anger on display in Richard Jewell, the person, and the story knows how to find the truth from the victim’s perspective and how that person overcomes it, and that’s true heroism. Next time you read around social media about what others say about that one random person, think about what Jewell went through and maybe you can do better.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: R (for language including some sexual references, and brief bloody images)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 3.5 Stars (Out of Four)