Richard Jewell

Donovan Bailey. Gail Devers. Michael Johnson. Svetlana Masterkova.Wladimir Klitschko. Shannon Miller. Gwen Torrence. Fatuma Roba. Haile Gebrselassie (Legend). Richard Jewell. What did all these 10 people have in common? The 1996 summer Olympics made them famous. Well, 9 of them famous and 1 of them infamous. All 10 were great at their job but for 1 of them being good at his job ruined his life.

Richard Jewell always wanted to be in law enforcement but it just was not meant to be. To follow his dream he took a job as a security guard at the 1996 Olympic games opening ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia in the hopes it would be a stepping stone towards a real police job. Unfortunately for him, during a routine sweep of the music arena he found a pipe bomb, that ultimately exploded killing 1 person and injuring many others, but his actions in alerting the crowd to move saved 100's of lives. Why is that unfortunate you may ask? Because mere days after he found himself under investigation for the bombing, because he fit the lone wolf profile the FBI created. With no evidence other than that he found himself under the screws of 2 of the most powerful forces on Earth. The U.S. government and the U.S. media.

Paul Walter Hauser who plays the lead role is fantastic. Absolutely believable in the part. His large frame and his slow Georgia drawl will instantly lead you to believe one thing about Richard but you'll be wrong. There's far more to him than meets the eye and Hauser drags every inch of humanity out of the part. In a just world, it would be a star making turn, with Hauser having already put in mighty work in I,Tonya and Blackkklansman and his brilliant showing in MMA TV show, Kingdom but sadly the rest of the film just does not live up to the him. Richard Jewell did a heroic thing and he deserved a story with a bit more oomph than this.

In the last 10 years Clint Eastwood, has directed 8 films and 5 of them were about real life "heroes". Each of them has been dull as ditchwater and Richard Jewell is the latest. It's bland, simplistic, broad and boring. It even looks boring. Clint has never been a flashy auteur, preferring a toned down, muted look but at this stage he isn't even trying. 2019's The Mule shows there's plenty of fizz left in the tank but his real life stuff ironically drags the life out of you while you watch. There's no surprises here, there's nothing new on display, there's no dramatic tension whatsoever and in it's attempt to simplify the story it commits a huge sin. It's a film about a man trying to overcome the lies being told about him but with it's portrayal of reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) and her investigative methods it does the exact same thing to her. Slander driven by a need to tell a story. Open letter's printed in Atlanta's biggest newspaper have said as much. You'd think at some point someone reading the script would speak up but when you've someone as famous as Clint in charge it seems people keep schtum.

I hope Clint keeps directing. I truly believe he has one great film left in him, hopefully a western, but this film is one that will be forgotten rapidly. It just feels sluggish and lazy, a paint by numbers. One for the money. Nice turns from the always reliable Kathy Bates (as Mama Jewell)  and Sam Rockwell (as Richard's lawyer) prop up Paul Walter Hauser nicely but this is as humdrum as award season movie making gets.

In cinemas now. Wait for Netflix.