Richard Jewell: Man Against the Machine

I’ll admit, I watched Richard Jewell out of a sense of obligation rather than any genuine interest. It has gotten nominated for awards and received some critical recognition, but I figured this was for the Clint Eastwood fanboys, much like everyone going wild for Scorsese’s The Irishman. However, turns out this movie is actually quite a treat, thanks to its star, Paul Walter Hauser.

Hauser plays the eponymous Richard Jewell, a security guard who was working in Centennial Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics and helped to alert the police to the presence of a bomb. Jewell was initially hailed as a a national hero for his quick intervention, but once word got out that the FBI was treating him as the main suspect in the bombing, things rapidly went south. I knew nothing about the 1996 bombing or Jewell so this movie constantly took me by surprise, but people who remember this story will probably enjoy it even more as they probably had no idea about the behind-the-scenes drama in Jewell's household. Kathy Bates plays his mother, Bobi, a woman who loves her son and is so kind and proud and then starts to crumble under the intense media scrutiny and vitriol lobbed at Richard. I can't imagine how this story would have played out today with 24/7 news outlets and endless social media furor, but it was traumatic enough for this family in 1996.

Jon Hamm also stars as a very devious FBI agent, Tom Shaw, who doesn't seen to think it is necessary to play by the rules and does everything he can to entrap Jewell into a confession. Thankfully, Jewell enlists the help of a lawyer, Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell, who is great in this film and finally playing a good guy after a string of roles where he has been Nazi-adjacent), who has his back and fights tirelessly to get this man's life back on track. The dynamic between Jewell and Bryant is fantastic, with Bryant constantly prodding Jewell to be less subservient and fight for his rights. The screenplay by Billy Ray is powerful, showcasing how Jewell, who was raised his whole life to respect authority and always dreamed of a career in law enforcement, is now being mistreated and maligned by his idols and has no idea how to react. Hauser does a brilliant job of portraying Jewell's slow confusion and the ultimate realization of his betrayal - it is a stoic and heroic performance, never tipping over into melodrama, but always ensuring you can feel every emotion that is going through this man's head.

However, I would be remiss if I didn't point out some of the more problematic aspects of the film. At a time when people seem intent on vilifying government institutions and the FBI, this movie further fuels that narrative of distrusting big government. I don't know how much of what is portrayed in the film is true - the FBI agents treat Jewell quite egregiously, and there was certainly a lot of gasping from the audience at how blatantly terrible their actions were. But given Eastwood's Republican tendencies, I definitely had a sense that I was being told that we shouldn't trust the FBI and the common man can only depend on himself for his own survival. The second issue with this film is its treatment of Kathy Scruggs (played by Olivia Wilde), the journalist who first broke the story that Jewell was the target of the FBI's investigation. In the movie she is portrayed as a rapacious woman who has sex with a source for the story, which plays into every sexist trope of female journalists. Scruggs died in 2001, but the paper she worked for, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution has published an open letter condemning the scene as "entirely false and malicious." Unsurprisingly, this is what often happens when men write and direct movies - you get a powerful and brilliant performance from the leading male actor, but the supporting actresses only get stereotypical one-note parts.

Putting those controversies aside, overall, I enjoyed Richard Jewell. It was a compelling story about the type of man you don't often get to see starring in a Hollywood movie. I have no doubt that vast swathes of the story have been mined for drama and fabricated to create maximum tension, but all I cared about was Hauser's singularly great acting performance. It was restrained but brimming with emotion, and even though this movie isn't doing too well at the box office, I dearly hope he gets some awards love. After all, the whole point of a Best Actor is that he elevates the movie he's in.