RICHARD JEWELL
From saviour to suspect…
Is Clint’s latest outing a diamond in the rough?
OUT 31 JANUARY
The real-life Richard Jewell’s moment in the sun came back in 1996, working as a security guard at a concert celebrating the Atlanta Olympic Games. After shooing away some drunken kids, Jewell found an unattended backpack under a bench. Reacting quickly, he led the operation to clear the area. A bomb exploded, but his actions saved thousands of lives.
Clint Eastwood previously tackled true-life terrorism prevention in his 2018 misfire The 15:17 To Paris. Here, the hook is less the act of everyday bravery, more what happened next. Following the backpack incident, Jewell (I, Tonya’s Paul Walter Hauser) is lauded in the media (one man even wants to publish his story in a book), only for everything to turn sour when the FBI points the finger at him as the bomber.
Led by unreliable agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm), who thinks nothing of bedding local newspaper reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) after spilling secrets, the accusation is based purely on circumstantial evidence. Namely, that Jewell fits the profile of a lone wolf. He lives with his mother Bobi (Kathy Bates), keeps a stash-load of guns at home and has a past history of erratic behaviour. Hence, he wanted to plant a bomb to gain the spotlight.
Soon enough, reporters are clamouring outside Richard’s front door, and the FBI is rifling through his mother’s underwear drawer and Tupperware collection. Just about the only man on the accused’s side is local lawyer Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell), whom Richard met years earlier when working in a law firm’s mailroom. With the encouragement of his no-nonsense paralegal Nadya (Nina Arianda), Watson takes on Richard’s fight against the government, the media and the locals of Atlanta.
Eastwood, who turns 90 in 2020, directs with the minimum of fuss from the well-wrought script by Billy Ray, who previously explored media scandals in 2003’s Shattered Glass.
He has no need for any pyrotechnics, when the likes of Rockwell, Bates and Hamm are all on their game.
Really, though, this is all about Hauser, who ditches his comedy roots for a moving performance. His Jewell is a man who sees his respect for authority gradually worn down – something that Hauser conveys superbly. There’s a sense of the American Dream morphing into a nightmare, as the institutions that meant the world to him suddenly turn hostile. As Jewell learns to put up his fists and fight back, and his mother breaks hearts on national television, Eastwood measures the emotions expertly. Never overstated, never overstaying its welcome, this is indeed something of a jewel. James Mottram
THE VERDICT
A worthy tribute to a wronged man, fuelled by a spot-on turn from Paul Walter Hauser.