Mark Reviews Movies: RICHARD JEWELL

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 12, 2019

Richard Jewell certainly didn't deserve the public scrutiny he received. It's strange to remember that incident now, 23 years after the fact. Jewell's name became synonymous with guilt, even though he wasn't convicted or even charged with any crime associated with the bombing at the 1996 Olympics.

There were accusations and innuendos and jokes about the supposed certainty that Jewell, a security guard who discovered the explosive device at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta (and probably saved scores or hundreds of lives in the process), had planted the bomb himself. When the FBI announced that its investigation into the man had ceased, the story mostly disappeared.

The clearing of his name definitely didn't receive the same widespread attention that the suspicion did. Most who recall the firestorm of Jewell's time in the spotlight, going from hero to assumed terrorist in a matter of days, might even be surprised that the man died in 2007—two years after the man who did set that bomb, which killed two people and injured over a 100 more, pleaded guilty to the crime.

Richard Jewell, director Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray's dramatized account of the eponymous figure's unjust placement in the public spotlight, wants to change the narrative that essentially stopped as soon as Jewell was cleared of any involvement. The film never makes his innocence a question, portraying Jewell's every move during the night of the bomb attack.

When the bomb is placed under a bench during a concert, Jewell is nowhere to be seen. He arrives later, confronting a group of drunk teenagers, and his discovery of a backpack, containing three explosive devices rigged to a timer, is just dumb luck. He's the only one who sees it as a possible threat, and that determination to follow the book at least prevented more people from being within close proximity of the blast.

Here, Jewell is played by Paul Walter Hauser, a recognizable character actor who portrays the man without any pretense of heroism, nobility, or martyrdom. That's the right choice for this particular telling of the story, which frames Richard as a naïve pawn trapped within a series of systems that he can only barely fathom.

He was once a cop, although that didn't go well (The film glosses over some of his employment history, playing his errors of judgment as a joke). At first, we see him in a couple of jobs, going above and beyond in ways that he thinks are proper but that others might see as off-putting. This Richard is, perhaps, too eager to please, to be noticed, and to have some level of authority. That serves him—not to mention hundreds of people in that park—well during what would become the key moment of his life. It also, well, makes him a pretty attractive target for the investigation into the attack.

The earlier jobs are important to the story of the investigation into Richard. One, as a maybe-too-enthusiastic member of the campus police at a university, explains why FBI agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm), who was assigned to the park when the attack occurred, sees Richard as a potential suspect—beyond the notion that, as the agent puts it, "You look at the guy who found the bomb in the same way you look at the guy who found the body." The other, working in a cleaning position at a legal office, connects Richard to Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell), the attorney who believes he has landed a star client for a book deal, only to spend almost three months contending with a confrontational FBI and news media.

In this regard, Ray's screenplay isn't too concerned with any sort of nuance. The feds are dogged, convinced that they have the right man based on a hypothetical profile (which turns out to be accurate, only pointed at the wrong individual—although the film ignores this, only mentioning the actual killer's name near the end) and Tom's belief that he failed.

On the public-discourse side of things, the press is broadly, disparagingly represented by Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde), a local reporter who exchanges sex for an off-the-record tip from Tom (which seems unlikely and unnecessary, even within the context of the story of the film) and writes a story that all but accuses Richard with the information. While the FBI makes Richard's life a constant source of scrutiny, members of the news media proceed to hound Richard, Watson, and the supposed suspect's mother Bobi (Kathy Bates).

The film is certain to become a target of ire or a rallying cry, depending on one's political disposition in these divisive times (Considering the decision to tell this story in this way and at this moment, it's almost certain that the filmmakers want at least a little of that debate). That's for others to consider in any more depth than simply pointing it out, though. The narrative here is specifically fashioned for Jewell's story to become a Kafkaesque nightmare of rumors, accusations, "unofficial" interrogations, searches, informants, and hidden microphones. That's just the government's side of things. Richard can't even take his dog outside to do its business in the middle of the night, without camera lights shining on and reporters shouting questions at him.

As such, the film works, in part because of Eastwood's matter-of-fact approach and mostly because Hauser, Rockwell (as the pragmatic, cunning, and driven lawyer), and Bates (as a mother who desperately wants to help but sees no way to) are so convincing in these roles. Richard Jewell may veer into some wild speculation of its own, but it sets the record straight where it matters.

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