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In his landmark 1968 study of the American director Howard Hawks , the critic Robin Wood identified a key theme in Hawks' work: “the lure of irresponsibility.” As a filmmaker Clint Eastwood is possibly more a William Wellman man than a Hawks one, but some of his pictures, most explicitly 1993’s “ A Perfect World ,” partake of a Hawksian dynamic. His new movie “Richard Jewell,” about the man who did heroic service at a terrorist bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics, only to face accusations of staging the bombing itself, is about a number of things, and the lure of irresponsibility is among them.

It’s not a lure to which the title character is immune. An early scene in this fleet, densely textured drama shows Jewell, played by Paul Walter Hauser with an empathy that seems genuinely lived-in, working as a college security guard. Derisively referred to as a “rent-a-cop” by students, he in turn inappropriately lords it over them. A meeting with a dean ends with the academic saying “Do you want to resign, or would it be better if I fired you?”

Years later, hired as a freelance security guard by AT&T, an Olympic Sponsor, to monitor music events at Centennial Park, Jewell is similarly heavy-handed, which actually proves useful when an actual pipe bomb explodes at an event. His work at securing a perimeter, as the pros call it, actually saves lives, and the less-than-socially adept Jewell is soon talking to Katie Couric on “The Today Show.”

The adulation won’t last. Jon Hamm ’s Tom Shaw, an FBI agent who had been at the site when the bomb went off, is assigned to look into Jewell. It’s standard procedure. On-site “heroes” who actually precipitate the event at which they act heroically are sadly not uncommon. But Shaw’s sense of having dropped the ball seems to inspire a rash zealousness. Shaw’s feelings of wanting to have sex with an attractive woman lead him to give Jewell’s name to Kathy Scruggs, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution who has aggressive methods of cultivating sources. On learning that Jewell’s a target, Scruggs, played with nearly-disturbing aggressive exuberance by Olivia Wilde , exclaims “That fat fuck lives with his mother, of course.”

And Jewell, who does indeed live with his mother—played by Kathy Bates , who eventually steals the movie—now sees his life implode. A man with a near-irrational respect for law enforcement, he either looks on dumbly or says the wrong thing as FBI automatons remove his mother’s underwear from their apartment and trembles with mute hurt as Tom Brokaw , who days before had praised him, smugly pronounces that the FBI is close to having enough to “nail” the innocent man. Soon, with the help of G. Watson Bryant, a relatively down-at-his-heels lawyer that Jewell knew when he was a supply clerk—played with such seamlessness by Sam Rockwell that you almost don’t notice just how good he is, which is very—Jewell begins to fight back.

Eastwood’s conceptions of heroism and villainy have always been, if not endlessly complex, at least never simplistic. One thing he’s not is a moral relativist; he clearly believes in good and evil, and in good actors and bad actors. And so he, working from a script by Billy Ray (who treated journalistic malfeasance in his fact-based 2003 picture “ Shattered Glass ”), is unapologetic in making the bad actors here, Jon Hamm’s FBI agent and Olivia Wilde’s aggressive and callous reporter, pretty much bad to the bone. They both have their reasons, of course. Hamm’s character is seething with resentment that the bombing happened on his watch, so to speak, and has made Jewell the target of that rage. Wilde’s Scruggs is a scoop machine who keeps acting on the notion that she’s got something to prove, which, as a woman in a largely male newsroom she probably, unfairly, did.

But having reasons doesn’t make you right, and these two characters are very wrong. Eastwood’s unabashed and unmediated depiction of Wilde’s character in particular can’t be anything but a deliberate provocation. Do you feel that the Scruggs portrayed here is a sexist stereotype, a tired trope? Eastwood’s answer reminds one of a 2016 Trump campaign t-shirt (unofficial, I think): “Fuck Your Feelings.”

The ace that Eastwood has in the hole is that whatever you think, what happened to Richard Jewell happened. The feeding frenzy around his story almost killed him, and Eastwood depicts this in a manner that’s indignant while never running off the rails. It is true that the Atlanta Journal Constitution prevailed in Jewell’s lawsuit against them (several other outlets settled), but they won on the grounds that the facts as the paper reported them at the time were accurate. The First Amendment is the First Amendment, yes—the irresponsibility is in the tone with which the story was pushed, the contempt with which Jewell was both portrayed and treated. And as much as Eastwood finds to condemn in the movie’s designated villains, he does not deliver any comeuppances to them in the end. Which is merciful in the context of fiction, and kind of the mordant point in the context of fact. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film Credits

Richard Jewell (2019)

Rated R for language including some sexual references, and brief bloody images.

129 minutes

Paul Walter Hauser as Richard Jewell

Sam Rockwell as Watson Bryant

Kathy Bates as Bobi Jewell

Jon Hamm as Tom Shaw

Olivia Wilde as Kathy Scruggs

Nina Arianda as Nadya

• Clint Eastwood

Writer (magazine article)

• Marie Brenner

Cinematographer

• Yves Bélanger
• Arturo Sandoval

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Review: Clint Eastwood’s ‘Richard Jewell’ illuminates a real-life nightmare

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Powered by some potent acting, Clint Eastwood’s strong and involving “Richard Jewell” is the latest example of a genre that is one of Hollywood’s most durable: An innocent unjustly accused is all but obliterated by the indifferent forces of authority.

With examples ranging from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 “The Wrong Man” to 1932’s Paul Muni-starring “I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang” (both, like “Richard Jewell,” based on real events), this disturbing narrative even shares elements that go back as far as Victor Hugo’s often-dramatized 1862 novel “Les Misérables.”

For the record:

12:14 p.m. Dec. 13, 2019 Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man” was released in 1956, not 1951 as originally stated.

But because “Richard Jewell” is arriving at a particularly polarizing moment, even before it hit theaters the story it tells has become enmeshed in various controversies just as the real-life Jewell, falsely suspected in a deadly bombing at Atlanta’s 1996 Olympics, had his story overwhelmed by the imperatives of power elites.

So words have flown pro and con about whether the film maligns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which first published the FBI’s suspicions of Jewell, defames the reporter who broke the story, or even should be seen as a covert pro-Trump manifesto.

Some of these accusations have more validity than others, but Jewell himself, who died in 2007 at age 44, would likely hope that at least this once attention would be paid to his story, and to the price he paid for believing that law enforcement officials could do no wrong.

Written by the accomplished Billy Ray based on a Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner (whose work was the basis of “The Insider”), and also using the book “The Suspect” by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen as a source, “Richard Jewell” benefits as well from Eastwood’s way of working with film.

At this point in his career, the 89-year-old director has perfected what might be called a Zen-like style of no style. Nothing is as important to him as the streamlined delivery of a story, and he’s gotten so good at it that his tales often seem to be telling themselves.

“Richard Jewell” begins a decade before the bombing, in 1986, with its protagonist working as a supply clerk at the Atlanta office of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Given that part of his jobs is delivering snacks, it’s no surprise that Jewell, sensitively played by Paul Walter Hauser, has the hefty look of someone who’s had a few too many himself.

Even at these early stages, it’s clear that Jewell is a bit of an odd guy: shy, earnest, finicky about details and committed to saying “yes, sir” at every opportunity. The fact that he’s looking forward to a career in law enforcement is no surprise either.

The only SBA employee who doesn’t give Jewell a hard time is Watson Bryant (a splendid Sam Rockwell), an attorney who is both the smartest guy in the room and so incendiary that a move to private practice is inevitable.

A decade later, Jewell finds work as a security guard at the Olympics. Though he’s disheartened that all he will be doing is watching over stereo equipment in Centennial Park, his mom and biggest fan, Bobi (a dead-on Kathy Bates), reminds him “it is still law enforcement.”

If Jewell has a polar opposite in the film, it’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde). Attractive, ambitious and unscrupulous, she will do almost anything in pursuit of a story, including, the film tells us — apparently without evidence — trading the promise of sex for a tip in the bombing cases.

Her character undeniably verges on meretricious cliché, but Wilde, who has defended the portrait in numerous interviews, throws herself completely into the role and asks us to make up our own minds.

On the night of the bombing, we watch as Jewell discovers the device and helps in moving crowds away from it, thus averting more casualties than the one dead and over 100 wounded that resulted.

Initially hailed as a hero, he gets caught in the FBI’s crosshairs as a potential suspect because of intense pressure to find somebody, anybody, to pin the blame on. Once Scruggs’ story reveals his name and a ferocious media storm overtakes him, Jewell’s life is never the same.

One of the things “Richard Jewell” is adept at is showing exactly how unscrupulous the FBI, personified by fictionalized agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm), is at taking advantage of Jewell’s naivete and his blind faith in all things law and order.

The film also shines at portraying the mutually frustrating but ultimately life-saving odd-couple relationship between Jewell and attorney Bryant, whom Jewell hires because he’s the only lawyer he knows.

The key reason “Richard Jewell” works as well as it does is the perceptive nature of Hauser’s lead performance. His sense of who this character is, how he thinks about himself at his core, leads to scenes with both Rockwell and Bates that are unexpectedly powerful. A lifelong seeker after respect, Richard Jewell gets it here at last.

'Richard Jewell'

Rating: R, for language, including some sexual references, and brief bloody images Running time: 2 hours, 11 minutes Playing: In general release

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Breaking news, o.j. simpson, nfl great acquitted of ex-wife’s murder in high-profile trial, dies at 76, ‘richard jewell’: film review | afi 2019.

THR review: 'Richard Jewell,' Clint Eastwood's latest effort, tells the true story of a security guard initially hailed as a hero for saving lives in the bombing of the 1996 Summer Olympics, then vilified when the press reported he was a suspect.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Clint Eastwood is quite partial to accidental real-life heroes these days and he’s found a good, if unprepossessing one, in Richard Jewell , a lively and none-too-flattering look at the “media lynching” of a sad-sack security guard the press decided was responsible for a deadly bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games.

The director’s last five films — American Sniper , Sully , The 15:17 to Paris , The Mule and now this one — have focused on ordinary men doing extraordinary things, only to have them scrutinized, for better or worse, in the aftermath.

Release date: Dec 13, 2019

In format and focus, the new film emerges as a close sibling to the aviation drama Sully , which also centered on a man who became a hero by doing his job but whose actions were similarly, if less severely, picked apart by the press and authorities. Sully raked in $241 million worldwide and, while its box office might have benefited a bit from a guy named Tom Hanks in the lead role, the new pic’s concern with the vindication of an innocent man provides a similar dramatic trajectory that’s also quite satisfying. The Warner Bros. attraction world-premiered at AFI Fest in Los Angeles, bows nationally on Dec. 13 and should perform well with general audiences everywhere, but perhaps especially in the South.

Most Hollywood films about journalism since All the President’s Men 43 years ago have taken the free press’ side, portraying it as a scruffy if noble institution essential to the well-being of democracy. Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray ( The Hunger Games , Captain Phillips ) here take a rather different view of the Fourth Estate, portraying it as reckless, corrupt and immoral. At the center of its frenzy is the hapless and clueless Jewell, an overweight oddball who may well be the least likely leading man in any of Eastwood’s 40 — count ‘em, 40 — films as a director, but Paul Walter Hauser makes the most of it.   

Once intended as a vehicle for Jonah Hill, hence his inclusion here as an executive producer, the movie greatly benefits from the title role being played by a relative unknown; the casting enhances the anonymous Everyman nature of this ordinary fellow, who, in classic Preston Sturges fashion, has misfortune, and then a certain measure of greatness, thrust upon him. 

The nicely balanced script devotes just enough time at the outset to sketching an impression of Jewell as a mama’s boy loser and outcast to arouse slight suspicions that he could be a time bomb waiting to go off. A devoted student of the law — “I study the penal code every night,” he boasts — Jewell is also a video arcade regular who occasionally gets himself in trouble or loses security jobs out of over-zealousness, like busting frat boys in their rooms; “I don’t want any Mickey Mousing on this campus,” he proclaims, in a misguided burst of self-important authority. A once-upon-a-time cop, he boasts of a huge gun collection and spends a lot of time at the shooting range. He lives with his mom, Bobi (a wonderful Kathy Bates ), who loves him and can lift his spirits by saying things like, “You’re still a good guy warding off the bad guys, aren’t ya?”

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Clint eastwood's 'richard jewell' movie gets december awards release.

He is, in short, a non-entity, a man destined to live his life without making a mark on the world. But fate dictates otherwise. On the evening of July 27, a big crowd is enjoying a musical performance in Centennial Olympic Park when a warning call comes in about an imminent bombing. Jewell zealously jumps into action, beginning to clear the area where he has noticed a suspicious backpack. A pipe bomb goes off minutes later, killing one and injuring 111 (another died of incidental causes), but Jewell is widely lauded for his quick action, which prevented many more from being hurt or killed.

But after receiving initial thanks for his response to the emergency, this accidental hero soon sees his applause going quiet. A disgruntled former boss calls the FBI with his suspicions about Jewell, and a profile quickly takes shape of a misfit who triggers such a tragedy with the express purpose of then receiving public acclaim as a savior; it’s the “fake hero” syndrome. From here on, FBI honcho Tom Shaw ( Jon Hamm ) is convinced they’ve got their man in their sights — and, in a development that’s already stirring dispute and controversy, the film shows Shaw receiving sexual favors from real-life (but now deceased) Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (a raucously entertaining Olivia Wilde ) in exchange for a bombshell tip. 

From this point, Jewell’s life becomes a living hell, with the media on his case day and night and the FBI invading the family apartment; the young man’s extensive gun collection only furthers the feds’ conviction that “he fits the profile.” What he needs is a good attorney, but a guy like Jewell has to take what he can get, and the man hustling for the job rates perhaps only slightly higher in his professional field than Jewell does in his. Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) may not be another Johnnie Cochran or Gloria Allred, but he sees that the poor guy is being railroaded and commits to clearing his name.

The mob of reporters covering the story resembles a plague of locusts, with any little tidbit being transformed into big news as the media tries to finger a culprit. Jewell, along with his mother, must endure this combination of attack and deprivation for three months until, finally, the FBI realizes that, from a purely logistical point of view, the young man couldn’t have physically pulled off what they believed he did. The reality lay elsewhere, but that is another story.

The film loses a bit of steam in the final stretch, but there is climactic strength in Jewell’s brewing sense of purpose and self-respect, which contrasts with the abiding conviction of Hamm’s FBI man that Jewell remains “guilty as hell.” Eastwood echoes notions that have surfaced in his earlier movies about the gap between American ideals and the more troubling reality of life.

All the principal actors are ideally cast and seem very keyed-up for their parts here; Wilde and Hamm come on very strong in competitive try-and-stop-me roles, Rockwell provides all manner of disgruntled but finally energized determination to fight and win, and Bates dabs her maternal role with lovely shadings that go well beyond what’s in the script. But it’s Hauser who carries the film in a rare and unlikely role, that of a presumed loser in life (the man did die just a few years later, at 44) who suffered very unwanted attention — but who, when he needed to, found a way to rise to the occasion.

'Richard Jewell' Criticized for Suggesting Female Journalist Traded Sex for Information

Production companies: Malpaso, Appian Way, Misher Films, 75 Year Plan Distributor: Warner Bros. Cast: Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde, Nina Arianda, Paul Walter Hauser, Ian Gomez, Wayne Duvall Director: Clint Eastwood Screenwriter: Billy Ray, based on the article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell” by Marie Brenner Producers: Clint Eastwood, Tim Moore, Jessica Meier, Kevin Misher, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson, Jonah Hill Director of photography: Yves Belanger Production designer: Kevin Ishioka Costume designer: Deborah Hopper Editor: Joel Cox Music: Arturo Sandoval Casting: Geoffrey Miclat Venue: AFI Fest

Rated R, 131 minutes

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‘Richard Jewell’ Review: Low-Key Clint Eastwood True Drama Belongs to His Canon of Misunderstood Heroes

Ryan lattanzio, deputy editor, film.

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2019 AFI FEST Film Festival. Warner Bros. releases the film on Friday, December 13.

Clint Eastwood ‘s late career has revolved around two categories: There’s the gloves-off, no-apologies strand of Clint as an old man taking back what’s his while learning a lesson along the way (“The Mule,” “Gran Torino”), or his agitprop offerings — the ones he usually doesn’t star in — that seek to elevate good, but misunderstood real-life men (“Sully,” “The 15:17 to Paris”).

“ Richard Jewell ” belongs in that latter camp of complicated Eastwood heroes. While the 89-year-old director’s recent films often seem to serve as softer, artistic mea culpas for his controversial ideologies off the set, this time he gets out of his own way with a no-frills, solid-as-oak, competently mounted biopic. This muted drama won’t win Eastwood any new fans, but it won’t mar his legacy, either. The film’s low-key approach to a tragic media scandal feels at once timely and old-fashioned — a character study from another era designed to comment on our own.

“Richard Jewell” explores the plight of its eponymous real-life character, in a tale of heroism gone awry on the public stage: In 1996, security guard Richard Jewell stumbled upon a bomb at Centennial Park during one night of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The blast ultimately killed one person and injured more than 100, but could’ve been worse if it weren’t for Jewell successfully identifying the makeshift explosive tucked in a backpack under a bench just before detonation. But, without a tangible perpetrator, the FBI proceeded to make Jewell its primary suspect, and mass hysteria ensued as the FBI scrambled to pull his life apart to build a believable case.

While “Captain Phillips” writer Billy Ray adapts Marie Brenner’s Vanity Fair article into a sturdy retelling of those events, Eastwood handles the inciting set-piece with a striking lack of compromise. The harrowing explosion at Centennial Park — with bodies, limbs, and viscera splayed in Boschean fashion across the field after the bellowing explosion — can’t help but bring to mind images of the 2017 Harvest musical festival shooting in Las Vegas and other similar tragedies of late. While the film is set in the mid-1990s, Eastwood chose to tell this story now for a reason. It’s hard not to think about the panic and depravity of today’s ongoing cycle of homegrown terrorism dominating headlines, where innocent humans, especially in droves, are all moving targets.

At the crosshairs of a mass media hanging is Paul Walter Hauser’s Richard Jewell. A newcomer to leading roles, Hauser previously starred as one of the white-trash wannabe-criminals who took down Nancy Kerrigan in “I, Tonya.” Despite the dark material, Jewell’s standup background is evident here: The actor gives his character a cringeworthy sincerity — especially in abetting the FBI’s probe as they storm his mother’s apartment and arbitrarily box up her Tupperware, VHS tapes, and underwear as evidence — that’s almost humorous in its connotations, and allows the actor to work his own strengths into the material.

Jewell’s low-profile existence didn’t help his case. Until this 1996 moment of attempted grassroots heroism turned his life inside out, Jewell was a sad sack. He kept a low profile as a carpenter, handyman, or cop-for-rent, and as seen in the film, irritated the authority of his employers and drove them crazy with his self-sabotaging earnestness. Early in the film, he’s called into the office of his boss at a campus dorm facility, where Jewell is hired to police the bad behavior of rowdy college kids. Jewell has apparently been pissing off his charges by getting too physical, and has also been going way beyond the call of duty by pulling people over on the road while off-duty. (He’s not a real cop.) So he’s axed from the job and back to working as a thankless security detail at public events, which is how he ends up at the Olympic games in his hometown.

Even as Hauser’s performance lends the film a tragicomic edge, Eastwood’s solemn filmmaking never mocks his protagonist’s unfortunate place as the whipping post of the public eye. Arturo Sandoval’s hushed piano score is rarely present, until the movie gets into its second, more emotional half, and never veers into mawkishness.

Eastwood and “Mule” cinematographer Yves Bélanger maintain a static camera and often view their characters from a distance, never intervening to paste bold aesthetic choices onto the story. While the film’s muted visual approach threatens to push it into TV-movie territory, Eastwood’s plain style tends to be his greatest asset, because the stories at his films’ centers are often wild enough to tell themselves. That’s certainly the case here.

Still, the movie has a few emotional showstoppers. Its most touching performance comes from Kathy Bates as Richard’s mother Bobi. Bates is largely relegated to the story’s sidelines as the hand-wringing, doting helicopter mom, but a scene where Bobi is forced to deliver a tearful press conference, pleading for then-President Bill Clinton to pardon her son, injects the movie with a gutting centerpiece. As Richard Jewell’s anti-establishment attorney Watson Bryant, Sam Rockwell provides an anchor of reason as he coaches Jewell on how to navigate the barrage of accusations coming his way — and is the necessary straight man to set up some of Jewell’s worst verbal pratfalls.

Olivia Wilde, meanwhile, goes to town in the small but saucy role of aggressive, lede-chasing Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs. But the character has questionable implications, especially given a scene where Scruggs (who died in 2001) tries to trade sex with an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) for a story tip. Official accounts of the Jewell story make no mention of that twist, and it stands out a curious embellishment in a movie that generally commits to realism throughout.

With such artistic allowances in mind, “Richard Jewell” clearly falls on the sympathies of the protagonist and his defenders, with the press and Federal Bureau of Investigation shown as the bad guys not to be trusted. Jewell died in 2007, which means that the movie’s arguably most important voice will remain in the ether. Though the FBI arrested the real suspect of the bombing, Eric Rudolph, in 2003, there are plenty of loose ends here to inspire conversation. Jewell may have got a raw deal, but the biggest success of Eastwood’s movie is its attempt to do him some justice.

“Richard Jewell” world-premiered at AFI FEST 2019 and will be released theatrically by Warner Bros. on Friday, December 13.

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Richard Jewell Reviews

Politics notwithstanding, Eastwood deserves credit for creating such a thoroughly engrossing and passionate film like Richard Jewell just shy of his 90th birthday.

Full Review | Jul 20, 2023

Its strong acting and character relationship dynamics are the main selling points, as Eastwood’s sense of direction and pacing are the best they have been in a long time.

Full Review | Jun 5, 2023

It does a good job establishing its characters, but much like the movie’s namesake, it’s easygoing when it comes to emotions and a little too absorbed in the details.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 24, 2022

Richard Jewell is a strongly acted and solidly directed film by Clint Eastwood. All the lead performances are exceptional. However, the movie suffers from excess padding and should have focused less on the likely fictionalized Kathy Scruggs elements.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Aug 22, 2022

Richard Jewell plays out like justice for a man wronged, and the world gets to see that he’s innocent. A true hero, bumbling as he may have been, now has his story told.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | May 19, 2022

A cautionary tale about investigations gone wrong and the resultant media frenzies.

Full Review | May 18, 2022

One of Clint's most memorable characters, and a picture as well rounded and engaging as he's crafted in years.

Full Review | Original Score: 75/100 | Jan 14, 2022

An incredible cast, beautifully performed.

Full Review | Sep 15, 2021

The brief but powerful investigation of Richard Jewell remains a stain on law enforcement and media. But in his eagerness to show how badly they transgressed, Clint Eastwood has prevented his film from being as powerful as it could have been.

Full Review | Feb 17, 2021

The best film of 2019 to include a Macarena dance scene.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 30, 2021

The veteran director creates one of his best films in years with this powerful true story...

Full Review | Nov 6, 2020

A mostly successful return to form for Eastwood that overcomes its questionable characterizations and flawed execution of its arguments thanks to great performances and an incisive look on heroism.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 23, 2020

Richard Jewell was an ordinary hero who was never really afforded the opportunity to be truly ordinary or a hero.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 21, 2020

Set in 1996, filled with brand name products, tense with worry but stuck at home, Richard Jewell is an accurate portrait of the U.S.A. Eastwood insists it hasn't changed much in twenty-three years.

Full Review | Sep 17, 2020

If you like drama and the tut-tutting of government over-reach and media slander, knock yourself out, but there are other movies that don't trick you into cheering the budding incel.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 16, 2020

An understated and captivating story that boasts a fantastic central performance from Paul Walter Hauser.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 28, 2020

This is the sort of story Eastwood can tell in his sleep and, although the movie is undoubtedly solid, it often feels like there's an element of playing it safe here.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2020

The relatively small percentage of flawed malarkey in this movie ultimately doesn't spoil some of its better elements.

Full Review | Aug 10, 2020

Eastwood's film is a serious, humane and sincere artistic and social accomplishment.

Full Review | Aug 5, 2020

Based on true events, 'Richard Jewell', the new film by Clint Eastwood, tells a very unusual story that captivates me for two hours by portraying a truly honest individual. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 30, 2020

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Clint Eastwood's Richard Jewell is a deeply affecting drama, with a glitch: Review

Leah Greenblatt is the critic at large at Entertainment Weekly , covering movies, music, books, and theater. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and has been writing for EW since 2004.

Heroes aren’t supposed to look like Richard Jewell . They look like Bradley Cooper or Matt Damon or Tom Hanks, all men who have starred in Clint Eastwood movies over the last decade; they look, as more than half a century of cinema has taught us, like Clint Eastwood.

Jewell, the real-life Atlanta security guard played in the 89-year-old director’s latest film by Paul Walter Hauser , is the kind of guy who most eyes pass over, or only pause on long enough to dismiss: awkward and heavyset, almost boneless in his broad, soft proportions. But America still embraced him — for a few days at least — when he became an unlikely savior in the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing, correctly identifying a backpack full of explosives as a credible threat and preserving uncountable lives when he alerted officers and helped clear the scene. Within a week, he was also the FBI’s prime suspect.

As a filmmaker, Eastwood may not be famed for subtlety, but he does have a way with economy. And he delivers Jewell’s story with almost no unnecessary flourishes; a taut, streamlined drama leavened by crucial doses of empathy. Though it’s hard to say whether the movie would work at nearly the level that it does without the extraordinary performance of Hauser, an actor maybe best known as Jeff Gillooly’s hapless sidekick in I, Tonya or for his recurring role on the DirecTV series Kingdom .

He’s phenomenal in almost every scene; a gentle, lumbering bumbler with a drawl so low and slow he sounds like Huckleberry Hound on Quaaludes, but also a man with a much stricter moral code and sense of duty than his patchy resumé — mostly horizontal or downwardly mobile in the business of law enforcement — implies.

Hamstrung in the aftermath of the bombing and under intense pressure to solve the case, the FBI quickly turns to the theory that Jewell fits the profile they’re looking for: a single white man, lonely and unimportant and longing to play a bigger part in the world. He lives with his elderly mother (an excellent Kathy Bates ), and the only other person he can think of to call when he’s accused is a guy who was nice to him a few times at a former job, an itinerant lawyer named Watson Bryant ( Sam Rockwell ).

Jon Hamm , as the agent who comes after him like a hammer shark, doesn’t exactly earn a gold star for nuance. But at least he’s playing a composite; It’s Olivia Wilde ’s role as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs that has rightly come under heavy fire; in the film, she readily offers sex in exchange for story tips, a charge her former colleagues strenuously deny there is any evidence for . (Scruggs can’t defend herself; she died in 2001, at age 42.)

Aside from that gross slander and all the nasty, tired things it implies about female journalists, she’s also a poorly written character, brittle and much too broad. That sour — and unfortunately now very noisy — note is even more regrettable and ironic in a film that works so hard to expose the damage done when assumptions are made, reputations maligned, and good lives ruined. Jewell, too, is no longer here to tell his story, and Richard does that very well; it’s just a shame that his truth has come at the cost of another’s. B+

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‘Richard Jewell’: Clint Eastwood Defends Truth, Justice and an Innocent Man

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Clint Eastwood , pushing 90 adds a new addition to his gallery of unexpected American heroes, — think American Sniper, Sully, and, to a lesser extent, The 15:17 to Paris — courtesy of this tale of Richard Jewell, a do-gooder who was first celebrated and then unjustly vilified by the FBI and the media. In the title role once intended for Jonah Hill, Paul Walter Hauser — in a breakout performance — plays Jewell as thickset, thickheaded, and overzealous about law enforcement. In 1996, after being fired from the campus police unit at Georgia’s Piedmont College, he took a gig as a security guard for the AT&T Pavilion at the Atlanta Summer Olympics. A wannabe cop to his bones, Jewell is eager to prove his worth to his PD idols.

And on the night of July 27th, he does just that. During a concert at Centennial Park, he alerts the police to a suspicious backpack that contained three pipe bombs. His quick thinking and brave efforts to evacuate the crowd saved lives before the bomb exploded, killing one person and injuring more than 100 others. Eastwood infuses this sequence with nailbiting tension and unalloyed respect for Jewell’s actions under pressure.

Suddenly, this thirtysomething misfit who lives with his loyal mom Bobi (a terrific Kathy Bates , just named the year’s Best Supporting Actress by the National Board of Review) is hailed as a conquering hero by the press and the public. His 15 minutes of fame actually stretches to three days. After that, word leaks out that the FBI, repped by agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm), is sniffing around Jewell’s apartment and gun collection. Worse, he’s pegging the security guard as the prime suspect, fitting the bureau’s profile for the kind of fake hero who’d stage the whole bomb thing for a shot at the spotlight and a maybe job as a real cop.

Just how did word leak out? From an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by reporter Kathy Scruggs (a scrappy Olivia Wilde ), who, according to Eastwood’s movie, sleeps with the FBI guy to get the scoop.  Sources close to the reporter, who died at 42 in 2001, strongly claim that she never traded sex for a story; her former employer is demanding a disclaimer be added regarding what they consider to be character assassination. Indeed, the attempt to slut-shame a reporter who’s not around to defend herself stands as a black mark in a film that otherwise hews close to the proven facts of the case. The FBI did investigate Jewell. The feds and the press did hound him repeatedly (even Richard and Bobi’s beloved Tom Brokaw of NBC pointed fingers, for which the network was later sued ). In a script that Billy Ray ( The Hunger Games, Captain Phillips ) adapted from the Vanity Fair article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell,” by Marie Brenner, Eastwood gives them hell for it.

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All praise to Hauser, best known for adding dimension to the white-trash scuzzballs he played in I, Tonya and BlackKklansman, for seizing the potential of his first starring role and running with it. His ornery take on Jewell is miles from a martyr act. Instead, his performance offers a portrait of a flawed man who learns to confront his worst impulses and take steps to move past them. By the time Bobi makes a televised plea to President Clinton on behalf of her son — Bates nails the moment — Hauser has already shown us in detail the vulnerable human being she describes.

Cheers, too, for the tangy bite Sam Rockwell brings to Jewell’s Libertarian attorney Watson Bryant, a rebel whose methods rile the status quo and sometimes his own client. Jewell is often his own worst enemy, complying with the demands of his adored cops even when it’ll hurt his case. “They’re looking to eat you alive,” says Bryant, who asks Jewell if he’s ready to fight back. The look of disgust on Hauser’s face as Richard musters the strength to go to war for himself is indelibly moving, as is the moment in 2003 when the cops bring in the real bomber. What a shame that Jewell, who died of heart failure in 2007, didn’t live to see the film Eastwood has made of his life. It would have made his day.

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‘Richard Jewell’: Film Review

Clint Eastwood goes after two of the most powerful forces in contemporary America — the FBI and the media — in this true story of a hero falsely accused of being a terrorist.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Can you recall who was responsible for 1996’s Centennial Olympic Park bombing? Three days after the incident, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (accurately) reported that Richard Jewell , the security guard who discovered a backpack containing three pipe bombs and tipped the police, sparing the lives of innumerable concertgoers, had become the FBI’s main suspect. But was it right to run the story? Evidently, CNN had uncovered the same information (that Jewell was being investigated) but chose to wait. Once the AJC ran it, the news spread fast, turning Jewell from a hero to a villain in the public’s eyes.

Clint Eastwood ’s “Richard Jewell” intends to clear the man’s name once and for all. But “Richard Jewell” is a movie, and movies are notoriously inaccurate, taking what’s euphemistically referred to as “dramatic license” to make stories more entertaining. In this case, at a time when politicians have stoked public distrust of news media, and when news media have punched back by holding politicians to even stricter standards of truthfulness, does anybody want to hear what the “Hollywood elites” have to say about Richard Jewell?

The answer: A good story is a good story, and Eastwood knows how to tell a good story. With “Richard Jewell,” he and screenwriter Billy Ray — drawing from the Vanity Fair article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell,” by Marie Brenner — go about it in a broad and often too-simplistic sort of way, treating the “hero bomber” (played by Paul Walter Hauser in his first starring role) as a lovable loser. Still, the result is undeniably compelling, a kind of modern-day “Ace in the Hole” and a populist reflection of the public’s disdain for journalists and government alike, as told by a filmmaker (and let’s not forget: former mayor of Carmel, Calif.) with his finger on the pulse.

Without a major movie star in the lead, “Richard Jewell” will likely land in the $35 million range, like disappointments “J. Edgar” and “The 15:17 to Paris” before it, rather than the nine-digit territory of far-better biopics “Sully” and “American Sniper,” though all five projects demonstrate a remarkable output for a director operating well into his 80s. Even the bad movies (and when Eastwood is bad, he’s awful) reflect a consistency of focus. He’s an underdog’s director, skeptical of the system, firmly on the side of the falsely accused and completely unpretentious in his delivery.

Say what you will about Eastwood’s performance at the 2012 Republican National Convention (when he scolded Obama via an empty chair next to him onstage), but “Richard Jewell” does not come across as an old, out-of-touch white guy venting his frustrations with a specific political party. Instead, it reflects a thoughtful citizen wondering how we got to this point. Retracing Eastwood’s career as filmmaker, he clearly abhors nothing more than the abuse of power. Here, the director challenges two of the most powerful institutions in modern society, seizing on an especially disgraceful moment when the pressures on law enforcement (to get its man) and the pressures on news organizations (to get the scoop) ruined the reputation of an “innocent guy” (as director Michael Moore identified him in “The Big One”).

It has often been said that one’s reputation is determined not by one’s actions but by others’ perceptions. In Jewell’s case, extrapolating from the fact the FBI was investigating him, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution decided that he fit a certain profile: “This profile generally includes a frustrated white man who is a former police officer, member of the military or police ‘wanna-be’ who seeks to become a hero,” wrote AJC reporters Kathy Scruggs (played here by Olivia Wilde as an aggressive, unethical newshound) and Ron Martz (David Shae, who barely registers as a character). But do “lone bombers” fitting that description really exist?

“Richard Jewell” isn’t terribly generous to any of its characters, and though the filmmakers believe their protagonist to be innocent, as played by Hauser (a tubby character actor recently seen as a racist ignoramus in “BlacKkKlansman” and a bumbling bodyguard in “I, Tonya”), he comes off as a thickheaded goober, a glorified Paul Blart type. In 1996, while working for campus police at Piedmont College in Demorest, Ga., he was reprimanded for pulling cars over on the highway. After being dismissed from that job, he took his above-and-beyond enthusiasm to his next gig, working as a security guard for the AT&T Pavilion at the Summer Olympics, where the live-at-home schlub saw himself as a deputy member of law enforcement.

Sure, it’s pathetic to watch Jewell buddying up to the real cops, but that desperate everything-to-prove attitude of his is presumably what saved lives when he stumbled on a suspicious package near the sound-and-light tower just after midnight on July 27. The FBI was on the scene, but agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm, playing that handsome-on-the-outside, sordid-underneath dynamic that suited him so well in “Mad Men”) was distracted, flirting with Scruggs, working her contacts — and her sex appeal, the movie implies — for a lead.

As in “Sully,” when Eastwood showed the crash landing multiple times from various perspectives, the bomb goes off once, only to echo later in Jewell’s dreams and in flashback — a surefire way to juice up a story that’s mostly about procedure from the incident on out. Early in his professional career, Jewell made friends with an eccentric attorney, Watson Bryant ( Sam Rockwell ), and he’s the one Jewell calls when the FBI brings him in for questioning.

Bryant is a Libertarian, as indicated by the “I fear government more than I fear terrorism” sign in his office, and Jewell’s case ignites a righteous fire in him, redeeming his sad solo law practice. In one scene, intercut with footage of Michael Johnson breaking the 200-meter speed record at the 1996 Olympics, Eastwood shows Bryant timing the walk between the bomb site and the pay phone where an anonymous 911 call was placed — a fancy bit of filmmaking meant to underscore Jewell’s innocence.

Richard, who lives at home with his mother, Bobi (Kathy Bates), just wants to be helpful, volunteering to assist in any way he can the FBI agents who search his home, while reporters from national news agencies camp out in the parking lot. Throughout the entire ordeal, Jewell remains polite and accommodating, which makes him look even more foolish at times. Supporting actors Wilde, Hamm, Bates and Rockwell play their roles at the brink of caricature, and yet, under Eastwood’s aegis, they don’t cross into outright parody.

The director is known for tossing less experienced actors in with the professionals — as in “The 15:17 to Paris,” where the trio who thwarted a terrorist attack played themselves, badly. In “Richard Jewell,” it works brilliantly, allowing Hauser to shine in a role movie star Jonah Hill once intended to play (he remains involved as a producer).

The real Jewell died in 2007 — a small fortune richer after making settlements in libel cases with NBC, the New York Post and his former Piedmont employers — which makes it possible for Hauser to interpret him as he pleases. The actor projects a goofy, good-natured bewilderment, off which Rockwell plays the indignant justice seeker. Wilde’s former colleagues have raised objections about how she is portrayed, especially the suggestion that she slept with an FBI agent to get the story, and it’s a thankless part, rendered ridiculous during a press conference in which she sobs in the background while Bobi comes to her son’s defense.

So, to return to the original question, who was the individual responsible for the bombing? Six years after Jewell was interrogated, the FBI finally caught the culprit, a man named Eric Rudolph, who conducted at least three other bombings (of a lesbian bar and two abortion clinics) subsequent to Centennial Park. Meanwhile, in the decades since, the trial-by-media phenomenon has only gotten worse, and our justice system seems all the more fallible. Maybe Eastwood is right to show Jewell as some kind of guinea pig. Just don’t assume that the movie’s any more accurate than the characters it critiques.

Reviewed at Warner Bros. screening room, Burbank, Nov. 18, 2019. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 131 MIN.

• Production: A Warner Bros. Pictures release and presentation of a Malpaso, Appian Way, Misher Films, 75 Year Plan production. Producers: Clint Eastwood, Tim Moore, Jessica Meier, Kevin Misher, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson, Jonah Hill.
• Crew: Director: Clint Eastwood. Screenplay: Billy Ray, based on the Vanity Fair article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell” by Marie Brenner. Camera (color, widescreen): Wes Belanger. Editor: Joel Cox. Music: Arturo Sandoval.
• With: Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde , Nina Arianda, Ian Gomez, David Shae.

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Richard Jewell Review

Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell answers the pressing question most of us have been asking since 2009: what if Paul Blart: Mall Cop were remade as a prestige picture? Clint Eastwood ’s straight-down-
the-middle drama about the security guard (Hauser) who saved countless lives by finding a pipe bomb during a concert celebrating the 1996 Summer Olympics continues his current obsession: the real-life ordinary American who becomes a hero then struggles with the aftermath (see American Sniper , Sully and, to some extent, The 15:17 To Paris ). Anchored by a strong performance by Paul Walter Hauser, Richard Jewell is simplistic, but still manages to make Jewell’s plight engaging without ever hitting dramatic highs.

After sketching Jewell’s overzealous passion for law enforcement (as a university security guard he arrested students before they reached the campus), Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray recreate the concert bombing in meticulous detail (like Sully ’s plane crash, Eastwood peppers it throughout the film to enliven talky procedural scenes). After being hailed an instant hero, Jewell’s life is upturned when FBI agent Tom Shaw ( Jon Hamm , with little to work with) tells journo Kathy Scruggs ( Olivia Wilde ) that Jewell is the only suspect. Making front page news, what follows is a series of (repetitive) scenes with Jewell under house arrest with his mom Bobi ( Kathy Bates , who grows in stature as the film goes on) as the media scrum grows more frenzied and the Feds struggle to try to find incriminating evidence.

Clint Eastwood’s simplicity also extends to his take on the material.

Best known for playing the dim-witted racist in BlacKkKlansman and the dim-witted bodyguard in I, Tonya , Hauser is perfect in a role originally earmarked for Jonah Hill (who exec produces here). In his skilful hands, Jewell flits between amicable and annoying (his desire to identify with the law enforcers who are making his life a misery frustrate). Jewell’s chemistry with lawyer Watson Bryant ( Sam Rockwell giving it trademark sass and energy) go a long way to make the film affecting. The weak link here is Wilde’s Scruggs, conceived as an aggressive hack and played with wild-eyed intensity by Wilde, who seems to be in a completely different, less interesting film.

Perhaps sprouting from Jewell’s hangdog quality, there is a sombre tenor to the film. Eastwood’s filmmaking runs to his bog-standard, unpretentious M.O., shooting scenes in mid-shot hell — a set-piece juxtaposing Michael Johnson running the 400 metres with Bryant pacing out the walk between the park and pay phone where the bomber made an anonymous 911 call boasts some rare brio. But Eastwood’s simplicity also extends to his take on the material. Richard Jewell venerates the underdog and castigates the Establishment, be it the government, law enforcement or media. In this sense it’s a world-view that might be considered Trumpian: bold, playing hard on simple sentiment and — Hauser aside — very little in the way of nuance.

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Movies | 03 10 2019

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Paul Walter Hauser (center) stars as Richard Jewel l, the hero and FBI suspect of the 1996 Olympic bombing. Warner Brothers Pictures hide caption

Paul Walter Hauser (center) stars as Richard Jewel l, the hero and FBI suspect of the 1996 Olympic bombing.

There's no post-credits scene at the end of director Clint Eastwood's Richard Jewell, a good-acting, bad-faith dramatization of the plight of a wrongfully accused security guard at the 1996 Olympic Games.

But if you stay put through all of them, patiently sheltering in place until minute 132, you'll strain your eyes to read this advisory: "The film is based on actual historical events. Dialogue and certain events and characters contained in the film were created for the purposes of dramatization." Jewell, a 33-year-old who'd been dismissed from jobs as a campus police officer and sheriff's deputy, discovered a bomb in Atlanta's Centennial Park. He was helping to evacuate the area when the device exploded, only to find himself publicly identified as the prime suspect. (Jewell was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing, after being put through the wringer of public scrutiny.)

Anyway, that lawerly little paragraph follows, by several minutes, two larger title cards explaining that Billy Ray's screenplay was based on two nonfiction pieces, a 1997 Vanity Fair story by Marie Brenner and The Suspect, a book by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen that was just published last month. But nowhere in either will you find any evidence that Kathy Scruggs and Ron Martz's Page One Atlanta Journal Constitution story — which accurately reported that the FBI was considered Jewell a suspect — only happened because Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) offered the lead FBI investigator (Jon Hamm) a sexual favor in exchange for a tip. In the movie's imagined scenario, they're not lovers sharing careless pillow talk; it's explicitly an exchange. "Should we get a room or just go to my car?" Wilde asks.

I'm using the actor's name here instead of that the character she's playing to highlight the movie's fundamental unfairness: Scruggs was a real person who died of a prescription drug overdose in 2001, while Hamm's G-man is a made-up character by the made-up name of Tom Shaw. (The real FBI agent believed to have tipped off Scruggs, Donald Johnson, has also died at a relatively young age in the intervening years, as has Jewell himself.) Had Ray opted to give his reckless reporter — the one he introduces to us an amoral ladder-climber who announces to her boss "I'm getting my [breasts] done" — an imaginary name too, his artistic license would remain current and valid. But he didn't, and that act of malice undermines everything of value in Richard Jewell. This film about the smearing of an innocent man is itself a hit piece. And unlike that unfortunate AJC story, it's an utterly intentional one.

While the editors of the AJC were guilty of poor judgment in their handling of a fast-breaking news story, the 89-year-old director of Richard Jewell has had 23 years (during which he has directed 22 feature films) to get it right. Why might he have chosen, at this perilous moment in our history, to make a movie that depicts not just the press but also the FBI as fundamentally corrupt and uninterested in the truth? The agents in the film trade on Jewell's desperation to be one of their peers ("I'm law enforcement, too" he tells them repeatedly, never once sounding like he believes it) to try to trick him into confessing while dismissing physical evidence that indicates he couldn't have done it — at least not without an accomplice, which torpedoes the lone-bomber psychological profile they insist fits Jewell to a T. In the movie's most adroit scene, he proves incapable of abstaining from small talk with the army of FBI evidence technicians searching the apartment he and his mother share, despite his lawyer's instructions to keep his mouth shut.

Technically, Eastwood tells the story with his usual efficiency: unfussy camerawork, mild, infrequent scoring. Wilde and Hamm both seem deeply bored, but the movie's three key performances — Paul Walter Hauser as Jewell, Sam Rockwell as his attorney Watson Bryant, and Kathy Bates as Bobbi Jewell, the wrongfully accused man's mother — are strong. These are good actors, but then again they're playing the only characters Ray's screenplay allows to exhibit more than one personality trait.

Hauser is the biggest revelation given his relative lack of familiarity; he was memorable as a deluded doofus with tough-guy aspirations in I, Tonya. That's a much wilder, more brazenly imaginative account of a splashy mid-90s news story than Richard Jewell is. Ironically, it's a more honest one, too.

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Richard jewell, common sense media reviewers.

Effective true story about heroism and human nature.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Explores aspects of human nature that lead people

He's not a typical hero, he has certain qualities

Bomb and explosion. Pools of blood, bloody wounds,

Kissing. Sexy pinup poster in a dorm room. Sexual

Strong language includes "f--k," "motherf----r," "

Snickers candy bars shown and mentioned in more th

More than one scene of teens drinking and/or drunk

Parents need to know that Richard Jewell is Clint Eastwood's expertly directed drama based on the true story of the man who discovered a bomb at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) saved countless lives but was wrongly pegged as the prime suspect. Expect strong violence,…

Positive Messages

Explores aspects of human nature that lead people to blame and accuse Jewell rather than believe he's a hero. Why isn't goodness always appreciated? Also examines idea of "fake news."

Positive Role Models

He's not a typical hero, he has certain qualities that aren't particularly appealing, and he suffers a great deal in the aftermath, but there's no question that, as portrayed here, Jewell is a hero whose actions saved lives. It could be argued that Watson is also a hero for taking on Richard's case, offering him friendship. There's been controversy over how journalist Kathy Scruggs is portrayed in the film; those who knew/worked with her say it's not accurate.

Violence & Scariness

Bomb and explosion. Pools of blood, bloody wounds, and some gore shown. Many guns shown, some shooting. More explosions in nightmare sequence.

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Sex, Romance & Nudity

Kissing. Sexy pinup poster in a dorm room. Sexual references. Flirting. It's suggested that a reporter trades sex for story leads.

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Strong language includes "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," "a--hole," "son of a bitch," "bastard," "dumbass," "ass," "goddamn," "pr--k," "hell," and "damn," plus "Jesus Christ" and "oh my God" (as exclamations).

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Products & Purchases

Snickers candy bars shown and mentioned in more than one scene. AT&T logo shown several times. Coca-Cola cans shown more than once.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

More than one scene of teens drinking and/or drunk. People drink beer at a social event. Drinks in bar. Supporting character smokes.

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Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Richard Jewell is Clint Eastwood 's expertly directed drama based on the true story of the man who discovered a bomb at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Richard Jewell ( Paul Walter Hauser ) saved countless lives but was wrongly pegged as the prime suspect. Expect strong violence, particularly the bombing, which leads to pools of blood, bloody wounds, and other gore. Guns are shown, with some shooting. Language is also mature, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," and more. Characters kiss, and there are a few sexual references and some flirting, as well as a sexy pinup picture in a dorm room. Teens drink in more than one scene, characters drink in bars and social situations, and a supporting character smokes. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (4)

Based on 3 parent reviews

Amazing Story of Good, Evil and how power corrupts

Good true story that needed to be told., what's the story.

In RICHARD JEWELL, it's 1996, and Richard Jewell ( Paul Walter Hauser ) lives with his mother ( Kathy Bates ) and dreams of becoming a police officer. Meanwhile, he works as a security guard in Atlanta during the Summer Olympics. At a concert in Centennial Olympic Park, Jewell spots an unattended backpack and acts fast, clearing the scene before the pipe bomb inside explodes. He's a hero, but an FBI investigator ( Jon Hamm ) believes that Richard fits a certain profile and is also the most likely suspect. Worse, reporter Kathy Scruggs ( Olivia Wilde ) learns of the FBI's suspicions and prints the story, turning Jewell into a pariah. A distraught Jewell calls a lawyer he once befriended, Watson Bryant ( Sam Rockwell ), and the fight is on to clear Jewell's good name.

Is It Any Good?

Director Clint Eastwood is a master of deceptively simple, sturdy filmmaking, and this fact-based drama is no exception, though the performances are the real key to its success. Bearing a strong similarity to Eastwood's excellent Sully (2016), Richard Jewell is also about a heroic act that's tainted by accusation and blame. While Sully was beautifully streamlined and could rely on Tom Hanks' effortless charisma, this movie is a little rougher around the edges. Hauser isn't quite as immediately appealing, but his fine performance sells Jewell's unflagging hope and goodness.

Moreover, casting the cool, charming misfit Rockwell not only as Richard's lawyer but also as his friend helps shine a positive light on the hero. Eastwood also gives space to the movie's antagonists (played by Hamm and Wilde), painting them less as sneering villains out to destroy a man's life than as people who are trying to do their jobs but make a mistake. (The portrayal of Scruggs, who died in 2001, has drawn criticism from those who knew her in real life; they say the movie depicts her methods inaccurately.) A standout Bates and a lovable Nina Arianda round out the cast, and Eastwood's expert craftsmanship brings the movie effectively home. Richard Jewell is an example of clear, masterful storytelling that gets to the heart of complex questions about human nature.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Richard Jewell 's violence . How did it make you feel? Does the fact that the bombing is based on a real event make it more shocking or affecting?

Why do you think some people thought Jewell wasn't a hero? Do you think any of that was based on the way he looked or spoke?

Are FBI agent Tom Shaw and reporter Kathy Scruggs intended to be the movie's villains? How accurately do you think they're portrayed? Why might filmmakers choose to alter the facts in a movie based on real life?

Is Richard Jewell a role model ? What about Watson Bryant?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 13, 2019
• On DVD or streaming : March 17, 2020
• Cast : Paul Walter Hauser , Sam Rockwell , Kathy Bates
• Director : Clint Eastwood
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Warner Bros.
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 129 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language including some sexual references, and brief bloody images
• Last updated : June 8, 2023

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Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Richard Jewell (2019)

December 2, 2019 by Robert Kojder

Richard Jewell . 2019

Directed by Clint Eastwood Starring Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde, Nina Arianda, Ian Gomez, Dylan Kussman, Mike Pniewski, Billy Slaughter, Niko Nicotera, Alex Collins, Desmond Phillips, Grant Roberts, Ronnie Allen, Garon Grigsby, Brian Brightman, David de Vries, and David Shae

American security guard Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) saves thousands of lives from an exploding bomb at the 1996 Olympics, but is vilified by journalists and the press who falsely report that he was a terrorist.

It was inevitable that one day Paul Walter Hauser would receive his own starring vehicle; there was just no denying his dimwitted charisma first seen in his breakout role, 2017’s I, Tonya . From there, it became impossible not to discuss his appearances in following reviews, putting in more brilliant neanderthal comedic work in the likes of BlackKklansman and Late Night (now with the added flourish of varying degrees of racism). The real surprise is just how fast Paul Walter Hauser’s spotlight has arrived, coming under the direction of the legendary Clint Eastwood (while the filmmaker has had hit-and-miss output lately, I assure you he is firing on all cylinders here) for Richard Jewell , a character study biopic of the deceased former rent-a-cop security guard that went from hero to prime suspect during a bomb explosion that took place at the 1996 Olympic Games emanating from Georgia.

Making the most of a brief prologue set in the mid-1980s, Richard Jewell introduces the eponymous workingman as a servant for a law firm, notably near attorney Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell, who has returned to the side of good after portraying about five consecutive racists). Richard is courteous (if Watson is in a heated argument over the phone, he walks gingerly when carting around supplies as to not disturb), observant (he notices when Watson is running out of duct tape and that he enjoys eating Snickers bars, kindly purchasing some out of the goodness in his heart), and most crucially, has serious ambitions to rise up the law enforcement ranks. The man respects all areas of the government; they are his heroes.

Be careful when meeting your heroes.

By now, it’s common knowledge that Clint Eastwood has become fascinated by studying acts of heroism from regular citizens with standard jobs, but with Richard Jewell , he has a quirky and idiosyncratic individual to propel that analysis into an upper echelon of intrigue and excellence. If for whatever reason you have yet to see anything featuring Paul Walter Hauser, it’s important to mention his rotund figure that, no insult intended, makes him resemble the Michelin Man whenever donning the clear white security outfit (with the only tracing of color coming from the blue AT&T logo patching). He lives with his mom (an outstanding supporting turn from Kathy Bates), appears to have a small army’s worth of firearms, and is equipped with vast knowledge about bombs. Amusingly, there is also a book detailing how O.J. Simpson got away with murder in his home (Clint Eastwood knows how to infuse this biopic with an appropriate amount of black humor). His lowly status at the bottom of the law enforcement food chain does not exactly generate him any respect.

Knowing that Richard was at the scene of the crime (he called in the backpack containing the bomb after a confrontation with some disrespectful teenage drunks near one of the concert festivities) and limited human casualties by a considerable amount, the FBI went ahead twisting the narrative into one of a false hero, using the above details. To them, Richard Jewell was a disgruntled overweight male that got no respect despite his sycophantic commitment to his job and superiors alongside extreme attention to job detail. Of course, the media also played a part, really launching the story into the public eye.

FBI agent Tom Shaw (a disgraceful Jon Hamm) needs someone to pin the attack on, but even he isn’t prepared for the resulting storm that comes after trading the information to Atlanta newspaper journalist Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde, playing someone belligerent and loud resembling one of her Booksmart teenagers all grown up, but with a malicious desire to report controversial stories without vetting them, all just for exposure and readership) in exchange for sexual intercourse. Now, there are already rumblings that this is a problematic portrayal of a woman, and honestly, that’s true to an extent. Exchanging sex for a story is fairly over-the-top (it never happened according to my own research), but her character is a horrible person (possibly based on a real journalist, as Richard Jewell ‘s script written by Billy Ray is pulled from a magazine article by Marie Brenner and at least one other source), and that’s fine. Women are allowed to play villains, especially one as vicious as Kathy when it comes to competition and her carelessness about the truth so long as she is winning. Olivia Wilde’s fiery and grounded performance keeps it from becoming a cartoon. The bigger issue with the character is her change of heart during the final act that comes out of nowhere and is most definitely not earned from a screenwriting standpoint.

What’s handled well is the greater message; the FBI and media can sometimes be evil manifested on opposite sides of the same coin. That’s also what makes tackling this part of the story extra difficult; of course, friends and peers are going to stand up for the now-deceased journalist, so it boils down to asking oneself what and how much should be believed. She couldn’t have been that honorable of a reporter if she got caught up vilifying Richard Jewell. However, the dynamic of both her and Richard Jewell functioning as tireless hard-working individuals deserve a little more emphasis. It would be less problematic if the filmmakers simply didn’t go the lazy sexual favors route with no source to back it up, especially considering a dead person is being thrown under the bus.

Whatever misgivings people have about Kathy Scruggs (it’s not like FBI agent Tom Shaw is presented any less of a terrible person) and Clint Eastwood’s/Billy Ray’s depiction of women, evaporates from the work of Kathy Bates. Paul Walter Hauser is absolutely worthy of an Oscar nomination, but so is Kathy’s work as his mother Bobi, who is given ample time to express pride in her son and an equal amount to vent her frustrations at the unfolding shitshow, both via body language and public speeches. Richard Jewell is an emotionally affecting movie about the unbreakable bond and support between mothers and sons as it is about a legal system that is chomping at the bit to place one of their most devoted acolytes on the chopping block. It’s no spoiler that Watson comes back into Richard’s life to play the part of lawyer, with the two of them also containing electric chemistry as the former pushes the latter to show some anger and outrage from not only being betrayed by his own government, but their disgusting willingness to take advantage of Richard’s small mind in order to incriminate himself.

Clint Eastwood also makes visual juxtapositions, namely with a photograph of a clean-shaven and properly presented Richard dressed up as a security guard. It’s a portrait that is intentionally visible during nearly every home scene amplifying in impact, the more disheveled and unkempt Richard becomes as the investigation goes on and on, obviously making no breakthroughs to arrest him. Richard Jewell is strong work from a master firing back after a few lukewarm outings. Maybe the rate at which he makes movies doesn’t matter, but how inherently compelling are the characters he chooses to study. Richard Jewell is a gem of a film and person, a relevant reminder that the government and media are not always on our side, and a vessel for incredible ensemble acting. For once, in the later stages of Clint Eastwood’s filmmaking career, I’m excited to see what kind of hero he tackles next.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, friend me on Facebook, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , check out my personal non-Flickering Myth affiliated  Patreon , or email me at [email protected]

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Screen Rant

Richard jewell review: eastwood's olympics bombing film is all melodrama.

What might've been a timely parable is instead presented as a capably crafted and acted, yet frustratingly reductive screed in Richard Jewell.

Two decades later (and the many changes to the media landscape that've come with them), the tale of Richard Jewell is one that still teems with relevance. It's a story about how quickly a person can go from being propped up as a hero to being vilified by the media before all the facts are in. But under the direction of Clint Eastwood, any kind of subtly or nuance gets tossed out the window in favor of unrefined melodrama. Richard Jewell doesn't paint its characters in rich shades of grey; there are those who inherently  know Jewell is misunderstood and quirky, yet a decent man to his core, and everyone else is out to railroad him, spurred on by their ambition and self-interest. What might've been a timely parable is instead presented as a capably crafted and acted, yet frustratingly reductive screed in Richard Jewell .

Paul Walter Hauser stars in Richard Jewell as its namesake, an aspiring police officer whose unwavering by-the-book attitude and respect for authority earns him the disdain and mockery of his peers. In spite of his numerous setbacks and still living with his mother Barbara (Kathy Bates), Jewell eventually lands a job working as a security guard at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. One night, he uncovers a bomb and heroically helps save the lives of those nearby, turning him into a celebrity overnight. However, when Atlanta-Journal Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) learns the FBI is investigating Jewell as a suspect in the bombing - thanks to a tip from Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm), the agent present during the night of the event - Jewell suddenly goes from hero to villain in the media's eyes. With the FBI bearing down on him, he turns to his onetime work friend, lawyer Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell), to start fighting back and clear his name.

Related: Read Screen Rant's Bombshell Review

What makes Richard Jewell somewhat infuriating to watch is the film takes note of the factors complicating its story, then proceeds to ignore them. The  Atlanta-Journal Constitution 's report on Jewell doesn't make anything up, nor does the FBI actually violate his constitutional rights, so the ingredients are there for a movie that explores the ethics of when information should be made available to the public, and at what point does a government organization cross the line while investigating a potential terrorist threat. Writer Billy Ray was willing to wrestle with these sorts of quandries in his scripts for previous true story-based dramatic thrillers like Shattered Glass and Breach , yet Richard Jewell presents its plot in black and white terms. And since the movie makes it clear Jewell is innocent from the get-go, there's nothing to challenge audiences and make them wonder if they would've shared the media and FBI's suspicions, had they been there and not already known the truth. It's a meaningful query, in light of pop culture's ongoing reexamination of the '90s and how often undeserving targets (a la Monica Lewinsky) were torn down by media figures of the decade.

Instead, Richard Jewell allows viewers to indulge their hindsight bias and shake their heads disapprovingly whenever anyone onscreen doubts Jewell or views him as a potential danger. Eastwood's filmmaking leaves something to be desired in other areas too, especially when it comes to pacing and tone. The off-beat hero antics and buddy comedy of its first act clashes with the movie's subsequent dramatic turn, and the scenes where Jewell's life is upended are oddly slack and tensionless, making them feel much longer than they are. At the same time, Eastwood is too good a craftsman to turn in a movie that looks subpar, and the combination of Yves Bélanger's strikingly naturalistic cinematography and Joel Cox's steady editing ensures Richard Jewell works as an economic piece of storytelling. Like the majority of his recent films, though, one wishes Eastwood has slowed down a little on Richard Jewell and taken the extra time to further refine its sequencing (the standout bombing set piece aside).

It's the performances that save Richard Jewell from mediocrity, especially those by Hauser and Rockwell. The idiosyncratic Jewell and sardonic Bryant are characters that play to the actors' respective strengths, and the scenes where it's just the pair interacting (be they playing arcade games in the '80s or trying to clear Jewell's name) are some of the film's most heartfelt, funny, and compelling. Less satisfying, though, are those by Hamm and Wilde as the almost comical antagonists. The former's federal agent is a composite character, but framing the FBI's dubious investigation of Jewell as Shaw's guilt-driven attempt to cover himself does nothing to make Richard Jewell seem less like a lurid dramatization. As for Wilde's already-infamous portrayal of Scruggs: one half-expects her to put on a fake mustache to twirl and cackle maniacally as she hounds other people in search of her next big scoop, prior to getting her comeuppance. (That the movie leaves out any mention of her premature death or the  Atlanta-Journal Constitution 's role in clearing Jewell's name does nothing to help its case.)

Earlier on in its development, Richard Jewell was set to star Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio as Jewell and Bryant, with Paul Greengrass directing. It's difficult to not suspect that iteration would've not only been just as well-acted as the version that got made, but also a more thrilling and thought-provoking docudrama in the vein of Greengrass' films like United 93 and 22 July . Unfortunately, Eastwood's take has all the same problems as the other true story-based movies he's made over the last decade, and boils "The Ballad of Richard Jewell" (as the Marie Brenner Vanity Fair article the film was partly inspired by is titled) down to a simpler and flatter story that's guilty of the very sensationalism it aspires to condemn. Jewell's tale deserved better than the cinematic equivalent of yelling "Fake news!" at a crowd of people.

NEXT: Watch the Official Richard Jewell Trailer

Richard Jewell  is now playing in U.S. theaters. It is 129 minutes long and is rated R for language including some sexual references, and brief bloody images.

Key Release Dates

Richard jewell.

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• DVD & Streaming

Richard Jewell

Content caution.

In Theaters

• December 13, 2019
• Paul Walter Hauser as Richard Jewel; Sam Rockwell as Watson Bryant; Kathy Bates as Barbara "Bobi" Jewell; Jon Hamm as Tom Shaw; Olivia Wilde as Kathy Scruggs; Ian Gomez as Agent Dan Bennet; Nina Arianda as Nadya

Home Release Date

• March 3, 2020
• Clint Eastwood

Distributor

• Warner Bros.

Movie Review

He just wanted to help people.

Ever since he was a boy growing up in Georgia, Richard Jewell looked up to law enforcement. While other kids were dreaming of becoming astronauts or basketball stars, Richard wanted to wear a badge, and for a time he did (until he was fired). Since then, he’s been a security guard off and on, which he likes just fine when a job comes along. But Richard always imagined that he was meant to do something more with his life. Something better. Something bluer.

Sure, he doesn’t look like a police officer: He carries a few extra pounds. But his ample girth is paired with unmatched enthusiasm. He reads police manuals in his spare time. He’s a better shot than Wyatt Earp ever was. And Richard believes it’d be just a matter of time before he gets another opportunity at wearing a real police badge again.

So when the Olympic Games come to Atlanta, with their overwhelming need for security personnel, Richard thinks it just might be his ticket back in the game. Maybe he’s just a security guard. But he’ll be the best one he could be.

On July 27, Richard shoos off some drunken kids from the side of a building when he spots an unattended backpack in Atlanta’s Centennial Park, where the Olympics’ nightly concerts are held. When he points it out to police on scene, they figure it’s full of beer or snacks for the kids. With so many visitors in Atlanta, some of ‘em are bound to leave their belongings behind. To think it’s a bomb? That’s just crazy, the cops say.

“I’d rather be crazy than wrong right now,” Richard says.

Turns out, he’s not crazy. And he’s not wrong. The experts find three massive pipe bombs. Minutes later, they explode: Two people die. More than 100 are injured. But it could’ve been worse, much, much worse, had it not been for Richard Jewell.

For three days, the security guard is a hero.

But soon the FBI begins to wonder: Is he? Agents Tom Shaw and Dan Bennet are determined to find out.

The president of Piedmont College tells tells them that Richard was trouble when he worked for the school, with a file full of complaints. An FBI profiler believes that Richard fits a “lone bomber” archetype: a frustrated, wanna-be police officer who plants a bomb just so he can discover it later—and then soak in all the accolades.

But Shaw and Bennet aren’t the only ones looking for a bomber. Kathy Scruggs, bulldog reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is, too. She and Agent Shaw know each other. Know each other well . She knows a well-placed word and a well-timed touch will pry her scoop loose—the identity of the prime suspect. No sacrifice, no matter how intimate, is too great for her next front-page splash.

Richard Jewell just wanted to help people. And he did.

Just wait ’til he gets his reward.

Positive Elements

The Richard Jewell in Richard Jewell is a hero—one with his share of faults and quirks, to be sure, but one to whom many owe their lives. And as he goes through the bombing aftermath’s earliest stages, he’s humble about his role. He was just doing his job, he tells a reporter: The real heroes are the policemen who risked their own lives creating a perimeter and diving headlong into the bomb’s bloody aftermath. Richard even gives credit to the drunken kids he was chasing, too: Had they not knocked the bag over, the bomb would’ve sprayed its contents (nails and screws) out, rather than up. Many more might’ve been injured or died.

When Richard goes from hero to suspect, though, he and the few folks in his inner circle show their true qualities. Richard’s mother, Bobbie, fears for and suffers greatly for her son. “I don’t know how to protect you from these people,” she weepily tells him. His lawyer, Watson Bryant, was a former associate of Richard’s—one of the few, Richard admits, who treated him like a real person. And he fills the same role here, doing his best to humanize a man being demonized in public.

As for Richard himself … well, he cooperates with the authorities to a literal fault (much to Watson’s exasperation). He helps his mom soldier through this difficult time, too. And he carries himself with a modicum of grace, rarely losing his temper. It’s impossible to escape the reality that underneath all his oddities and foibles, he’s just an honest-to-goodness nice guy. He can’t be anything but.

Let’s not forget about the story’s designated “villains.” Tom Shaw, the FBI agent pursuing Richard with the most enthusiasm, does so out of a legitimate desire to find the bomber. The bomb went off on his watch, after all, and he pursues who legitimately seems, at first , to be the most likely culprit. His is a sin of excess enthusiasm and dogged determination—qualities that in many another cops-and-criminals-based movie, makes the pursuant a hero, not a villain. (Indeed, you could argue that he and Richard share some of the same vices.) And while reporter Kathy Scruggs’ original motives are not so honorable, she too wants to find the real culprit. When she begins to doubt Richard’s role in the bombings, we see her regret for her own role in defaming him.

Spiritual Elements

In the aftermath of the bombing, Kathy Scruggs offers one of the strangest prayers I’ve heard on screen. “Dear God, let us find [the bomber] before anyone else does,” she says, holding hands with a fellow reporter. And , she adds with a profanity, let the guy be interesting.

Watson asks Richard if he belongs to any religious cults or fringe organizations. “Not unless the Baptists are a religious cult,” he says with a smile.

Sexual Content

There’s been no shortage of controversy over how Kathy Scruggs, a real reporter who broke and covered the Richard Jewell story, has been portrayed in Clint Eastwood’s movie. We can only say that Eastwood’s version of Kathy will do anything— anything —to get a story.

She wears provocative clothing, hoping that it might prove an effective conduit to loosen her sources’ lips. She mulls breast augmentation surgery. And when we first see her with Agent Tom Shaw, it’s clear the two already know each other well. She dances beside him in Centennial Park and encourages him to dance with her.

After the bombing, Kathy and Tom meet in a bar. In so many words, she offers to have sex with him in exchange for help with her story—promising that she won’t publish anything without corroborating information. (That winds up being a lie, one of many she tells.) She hints that other sources have fed her information regarding the bombing, and Tom insinuates that she likely procured that information from her other “informants” in the same way she’s trying to get it from him: through sex. She doesn’t deny it, but after they engage in a bit of clothed foreplay at the bar (no other way to describe it, really), Tom tells her they’re looking at Richard Jewell as the bomber. She informs him that they can still have sex, but that information puts a clock on their intimacy: She suggests either getting a room at a nearby hotel or just doing the deed in a car.

As the investigation begins to fall apart, the FBI advances a theory that Richard had an accomplice, perhaps his “homosexual lover.” Richard is pretty indignant about the suggestion: During a formal interview with the FBI, when Tom asks him why he wanted to work in Centennial Park, Richard makes it a point to say that he had a good vantage point to “look at the pretty girls.” He then emphasizes that he’s “not a homosexual.”

Bobbie is pretty upset when FBI agents take her “underthings.” Watson rubs noses with and kisses his assistant, Nadya (whom we learn he later married).

Violent Content

The bomb goes off, and we see both the explosion and its aftermath. The blast throws people back, and we see and hear nails thud and stick in a piece of modern art. Dozens and dozens of people are struck by the shrapnel, and they groan and cry in the grass as first responders buzz around the scene. One woman lies, apparently dead, in a pool of her own blood as her daughter implores her to move. Others bleed from various injuries.

In a dream sequence, Richard relives the explosion and throws himself on top of the bomb before it goes off.

As a security guard, Richard bumps a student in his Piedmont College dorm room, knocking him down. (The incident gets him fired.) He and a friend talk over the incident while firing guns at a shooting range. He gets a high score while playing a shooting game at a video arcade, too, and we see some crude, pixelated figures expire on screen. We learn that he reads tactical manuals (some of which he admits are controversial), and he owns scads of guns, including some assault rifles. He places all his weapons on his bed at Watson’s request, so the FBI—collecting evidence from she and Bobbie’s apartment—won’t find any “surprises.” When Watson sees all the weapons, he asks Richard if he’s preparing for a zombie invasion.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear more than 30 uses of the f-word and nearly 15 of the s-word. We also hear “b–ch,” “b–tard,” “d–n,” “h—” and “pr–k.” Someone flashes a pair of middle fingers. God’s name is misused a dozen times, five of those with the word “d–n.” Jesus’ name is abused another nine times.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Tom and Kathy meet at a bar twice. During the second meeting, Kathy tosses down the rest of a drink that Tom left behind, then orders another. Characters drink wine and beer, too.

Richard barges into a dorm room where beer is present—a definite no-no, according to the college rules. (Despite the presence of alcohol, Richard is later fired for harassing the students.) We learn that Richard sometimes stopped students before they ever got to campus in an effort to keep alcohol off the grounds—despite having no official jurisdiction. In Centennial Park, he tries to deal with a clutch of drunken, unruly youth who mock him in return. He sees someone pull beer out of a suspicious backpack.

Other Negative Elements

Few professions are more systematically denigrated than that of the so-called “rent-a-cop,” employees paid to keep order but without the weight of the law or the authority of a badge to enforce that order. Overweight, overly sincere Richard is doubly a target. We see him, essentially, bullied by some of the same people he tries to reprimand and even protect. Sometimes the people he most looks up to—policemen and FBI agents—mock him, sometimes subtly, sometimes not. On a couple of occasions, he tells Watson just what folks sometimes call him, and he admits that it hurts.

Tom and other FBI officials lie to Richard and work around his attorney in order to get the suspect to incriminate himself. (They initially bring him in for questioning under the pretext of a “training video,” and attempt to get him to sign a waiver dismissing his Miranda rights through chicanery, too.) Kathy’s guilty of her own fibs in her push to claim the story, and at one point she sneaks into Watson’s car and hides on the floor before pouncing on Watson, begging for some inside intel.

Richard suffers from diarrhea the night of the bombing. (He describes it as having “the runs.”) He’s rushing to a porta potty when he encounters the drunken kids and, then, the bomb.

Stories, particularly visual stories like movies, are funny things. Some may want to, say, warn about the evils of alcoholism. But to tell that story, you have to show lots and lots of drinking. Movies that decry violence are often necessarily guilty of portraying that same violence.

The irony at the heart of Richard Jewell is a bit more insidious, in a way. The movie wants us to show how the FBI and the media defamed not only an innocent man, but a man who should’ve been praised as a hero. But in so doing, Director Clint Eastwood is alleged to have defamed a real-life reporter, Kathy Scruggs, for sleeping around to nail down her own stories. “No one has ever said Kathy did anything like that,” said Kevin Riley, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’ s current editor-in-chief. And unlike Richard Jewell, Kathy is in no position to offer a defense: She died in 2001 of a prescription drug overdose.

I don’t think it was necessary to depict the reporter sleeping around to drive home the point that the press was at least partly at fault for what happened to Richard Jewell. But I wish that if Eastwood wanted to feature such a duplicitous reporter, he would’ve used a composite character, because the controversy surrounding Scruggs detracts from what is otherwise a strong and thoughtful, if profane, movie.

Richard Jewell warns about the dangers of profiling anyone. Eastwood’s latest suggests that judging someone based on appearances and assumptions can lead to injustice and tragedy. And even when justice is ultimately served, the consequences can still linger. Take Richard Jewell, whose name was officially cleared three months after he was accused (and who quietly celebrated, the movie suggests, when the real bomber confessed six years later). But even though he was vindicated, I didn’t immediately remember—until watching the movie’s trailers—whether the real Richard Jewell was guilty or innocent. Accusations of wrongdoing—even if they’re just that, accusations—tend to linger.

Richard Jewell is a sad, gripping and sometimes surprisingly funny film. But the film’s language, along with its questionable treatment of a key character, remind us of the movie’s main point. Not everything is what it seems.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Clint Eastwood’s ‘Richard Jewell’ Failed Itself

The 2019 film exposes some of Eastwood’s biggest missteps as a director.

The Big Picture

• Clint Eastwood's Richard Jewell mischaracterizes journalism and falls short in its portrayal of sensitive subject material.
• Despite moments of promise, the film fails its subject and star by oversimplifying the events.
• Eastwood's idealized depiction lacks depth, resulting in a film that is devoid of any real suspense and fails to do justice to the true story.

As both an actor and star, Clint Eastwood managed to change the trajectory of Western cinema forever and is largely responsible for the genre’s rejuvenation in the late 1960s. Eastwood would soon step behind the camera to direct classic Westerns like Pale Rider and Unforgiven , but many of his greatest directorial efforts are non-Western films . Eastwood clearly has a reverence for significant moments in America’s past and has helmed biographical films like Flags of Our Fathers , J. Edgar, American Sniper , and Sully that framed historical events as heroic and empowering stories. Unfortunately, Eastwood’s personal politics are often detrimental to the narrative cohesion of his projects. Despite being based on an inspiring true story, Richard Jewell exposes some of Eastwood’s biggest missteps as a director.

Richard Jewell

Security guard Richard Jewell is an instant hero after foiling a bomb attack at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, but his life becomes a nightmare when the FBI leaks to the media that he is a suspect in the case.

What Is ‘Richard Jewell’ About?

Like many of Eastwood’s most recent films , Richard Jewell aims to go “further from the headlines” in tackling a tragic event in America’s recent history. The film examines the aftermath of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing , in which an explosive device detonated in a crowd during the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia resulted in an intense FBI investigation. The attack resulted in the death of an innocent civilian, but many lives were saved by the security guard Richard Jewell ( Paul Walter Hauser ), who successfully directed the crowd to safety. Unfortunately, Jewell’s proximity to the attack and knowledge of the Centennial Park infrastructure made him a primary target for the investigation.

While the circumstances surrounding the attack had the potential to be a great thriller, a majority of Richard Jewell ’s runtime is dominated by the subsequent investigation into the real culprit. After Jewell’s willingness to testify about what he witnessed ends up planting him under further suspicion, he hires attorney G. Watson Bryant Jr. ( Sam Rockwell ) to defend him; despite knowing that he should keep his mouth shut, Jewell can’t help but open up to the investigators in hopes of helping solve the case. Although his mother, Bobi ( Kathy Bates ), begs for him to stay silent, Jewell is convinced that he will achieve his dream of becoming a “real American hero” if he complies with all of the FBI’s mandates.

Steven Spielberg Broke Up a Feud Between Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee

Despite a fantastic performance from Hauser , Richard Jewell is too idealized in its depiction of the main character . Eastwood is so quick to herald Jewell as a misunderstood underdog that there’s never any depth to the character. While his continued efforts to aid in the investigation should have spoken to his unflinching honor, they end up feeling irritating and repetitive given the procedural nature in which Eastwood characterizes the courtroom scenes. While Eastwood’s recent historical films like Sully and American Sniper succeeded by taking a non-linear approach to their narratives, the straightforward structure of Richard Jewell results in a film that lacks any real suspense. Given how dominant the real news story was, there’s little new information that Eastwood can reveal to those that already remember the cycle playing out in real-time.

‘Richard Jewell’ Grossly Mishandles Its Depiction of Kathy Scruggs

Despite the film admittedly doing a good job of identifying the strength of Jewell’s character, Richard Jewell makes a disastrous miscalculation in its depiction of journalism. Once Jewell finds himself under an official FBI investigation, the film focuses on how the Atlanta-Journal Constitution writer Kathy Scruggs ( Olivia Wilde ) grew utterly convinced of his guilt and lobbied a series of defamatory stories in his direction. While an authentic depiction of journalism may have given a more well-rounded depiction of the situation, Eastwood goes to extreme lengths to show that Scruggs’ stories are written out of personal vindication, and not any desire to see the truth uncovered. It’s a grossly disrespectful deception of crime reporting that makes Richard Jewell particularly uncomfortable to watch given the state of America’s relationship with post-truth journalism.

If the slanderous portrayal of the media wasn’t enough, Richard Jewell conforms to sexist stereotypes in its depiction of Scruggs . It’s heavily suggested that Scruggs traded sexual favors with her interviewees to gain insights into her stories; it’s also implied that she is in the midst of a physical relationship with FBI Agent Tom Shaw ( Jon Hamm ), who is leading the investigation into Jewell and the bombing. It’s unfortunate to see such an antiquated and sexist portrayal of a real-life figure in a film dealing with such sensitive subject material, especially from a filmmaker like Eastwood who should have known better. That disappointment is only exacerbated due to Wilde’s casting; despite the polarizing reception to her directorial efforts , she is nonetheless a very talented actress who could’ve given a better performance had the material been stronger.

The over-the-top depiction of Scruggs creates dramatic inertia, as Richard Jewell barely scratches the surface when detailing the role the FBI played in the case . Although Hamm gives an effectively sinister performance , he, unfortunately, has to deal with the same shallowly written material that Wilde does. While there is at least a brief moment towards the third act of the film that suggests that Scruggs came to regret her role in the scandal, Hamm feels like a mustache-twirling villain taken out of a 1990s action movie and not an earnest portrayal of a real person.

‘Richard Jewell’ Doesn't Do Its Subjects or the Story Justice

What’s most disappointing about the film is that there are moments of promise sprinkled throughout Richard Jewell . Despite the downbeat nature of the true story, Eastwood inserts some welcome moments of levity between Rockwell and Hauser that make the film feel more authentic. Although her role is very much in the “generic mother” archetype, Bates’ powerful performance earned her a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. But, ultimately, may not have been the best director for Richard Jewell despite clearly having a passion for the material. His quickness to simplify the situation resulted in a film that didn’t do its subjects any justice.

Richard Jewell is streaming on Prime Video.

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‘Scoop’ Review: The Story Behind That Prince Andrew Interview

In 2019, the prince went on air to respond to accusations involving Jeffery Epstein. The drama here is in how the BBC convinced him to do it.

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By Ben Kenigsberg

The exposés that brought public attention to Watergate, the predations of Harvey Weinstein and the abuse tolerated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston have all been the subjects of movies. The drama revolved, in part, around the difficulty of getting people to talk.

Now comes the story of how the BBC program “Newsnight” landed its bombshell interview with Prince Andrew in 2019. Over a bizarre 49-minute segment, he unconvincingly addressed his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender, and repeatedly denied accusations by Virginia Roberts Giuffre that, at 17, she had sex with the prince after being trafficked to him by Epstein. The interview was less world historic than David Frost’s conversations with an out-of-office Richard Nixon (themselves the basis for a play-turned-movie), but the fallout was real. Faced with widespread criticism, Prince Andrew resigned from public duties just days later.

How do you score an interview with a scandal-plagued royal? “Scoop,” directed by Philip Martin, chronicles the determined efforts of the producer Sam McAlister (Billie Piper), on whose book, “Scoops,” the film is based. Attending meetings at Buckingham Palace may lack the grit of shoe-leather reporting, but there is genuine psychology involved in convincing a famous figure that countering disapproval requires acknowledging it, and that the questions asked will be fair. Sam makes her case over multiple discussions with the prince’s personal secretary, Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes), and eventually in a pitch to the prince himself (Rufus Sewell in significant makeup) alongside Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson), the journalist who hopes to interrogate him.

The film finds sufficient suspense in these negotiations and in Maitlis’s preparations for the encounter, a grilling that, in real life, she skillfully pulled off without ever registering as discourteous. Why Prince Andrew’s answers were so tone-deaf — he was panned for not expressing sympathy for Epstein’s victims — is a mystery that “Scoop” sidesteps. (McAlister and Thirsk exchange ambiguous glances as the taping concludes.)

What “Scoop” offers is the modest pleasure — to which any journalist is susceptible — of rooting for a reporting team to get a story. That, and mimicry: exceptional on Anderson’s part, less on that of Sewell, who has a raspier voice and a more passably serious manner than the prince displayed on TV.

Scoop Not Rated. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Watch on Netflix .

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