Review of Richard Jewell (2019) by Markhreviews — 04 Jan 2020

As a director, Clint Eastwood is known and respected for his spare storytelling, getting rid of non-essential dialogue and action to focus on the essence of his characters. In “Richard Jewell,” Eastwood puts that skill set to good use again, but only inconsistently.

The title character in this film was a security guard at the 1996 Olympics. Richard Jewell was credited with discovering a bomb at the Centennial Park music venue and saving many lives by alerting authorities and helping to evacuate the area before the bomb detonated. For three days, he was celebrated as a hero. (The film uses actual footage of Jewell’s interview with Katie Couric on “The Today Show.”) Soon, however, the FBI’s manhunt trains its sights on Jewell, whose life is torn apart by the FBI scrutiny and the related media frenzy.

Paul Walter Hauser (best known for his clueless characters in “I, Tonya” and “BlacKkKlansman”) is extremely effective in the title role. He convincingly portrays Jewell’s earnest zeal to protect the public, while also embracing his tendency toward braggadocio, overreaching and general officiousness, traits that got him fired from a sheriff’s department and a university security force. However, as Eastwood compellingly points out, nobody deserves what Jewell went through.

This film could have been a lot more interesting and much more compelling if Eastwood had been equally attentive to any of the other characters in the film. The lead FBI agent (Jon Hamm) is a caricature, a bully entirely comfortable living in the gray areas of the law during his rush to build a case against Jewell. Similarly, Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde), the newspaper reporter who broke the story that Jewell was under investigation, is a one-dimensional study in arrogance and ambition. In the film, she’s portrayed as sleeping with an FBI agent in order to get her story, a contention that has no basis in fact. Indeed, “The Atlanta Journal Constitution,” her employer, unsuccessfully demanded an apology from Eastwood’s production company for its misleading portrayal. Only Sam Rockwell, as Jewell’s defense attorney, uses his sardonic style to overcome this general lack of development of any of the secondary characters.

Ultimately, “Richard Jewell” advances two themes. First, the film is persuasive that, in its rush to judgment, law enforcement and the media sometimes get it wrong. And as the film powerfully portrays, by the time the wheels of justice have turned and the wrongly accused has been exonerated, nobody is paying attention any more.

The second theme of the film, equally well-developed, is that people are complicated. We’re all a frustrating mixture of good intentions, bad judgments and, often, a painful lack of self-awareness. This would have been a much better film if Eastwood had been able to address the other characters with the same observational skills, sympathy and compassion he reserves for Jewell himself.