Review of Richard Jewell (2019) by Georgemcfly — 14 Dec 2019

We all know how this ends, since it was real life, but what you don’t get to see from the real life drama is the behind the scenes real life emotions portrayed by the actors of this film. Clint Eastwood has done such a good job of directing the actors that you might actually think at first this guy, Richard Jewell, might just have had the stereotype or personality profile to have done this crime. It delivers the truth, that being, that the freedom of the press to deliver news, while important, does not outweigh the need of the public to receive factual evidence. Hollywood is responsible for telling stories and the media is responsible to report facts, not opinion or sensationalized stories. It seems the two have been flipped when you watch this movie. The one thing I personally didn’t like was that the reporter responsible for this mess, that slept her way to the front page, was later remorseful for what she had done. Her personality on screen to that point was die-hard, ruthless, do-anything-I-can-for-a-story type. I have a hard time believing that someone like that could change suddenly, as she is portrayed to have emotions and tears of sadness for her ill-reported story during the scene where Bobbi Jewell pleads for her sons exoneration by our president. Of course, I tend to believe that Clint has directed truth, so I’ll give him the credit that he lived up to the truth in every scene and didn’t sugarcoat any detail. That was the point of this movie. Not to allow abuses of power. I think he did a great job of exposing the real abuses of power that exist even more readily around us today. Freedom is not free. It costs lives of men on battlefields and the diligence of free citizens to uphold truth in the face of mountains of pressure to go with the flow. Responsible reporting of facts is the responsibility of our press to the public. This “story” says that more clearly than the media is responsible to do.

Maybe younger people won’t care to see this movie because they don’t remember that time, or it moves too slowly, or it isn’t quick and easy like their life today, but they should. Society can only move forward if we understand our past and harness the lessons it teaches us. This “story” tells the truth of a situation that plagues us today and should be a lesson to teach us how to be better people going forward. Let your learning come from time spent examining facts, not fiction.