Richard Jewell (2019)

Directed by: Clint Eastwood | 131 minutes | drama | Actors: Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell, Brandon Stanley, Ryan Boz, Charles Green, Olivia Wilde, Mike Pniewski, Jon Hamm, Ian Gomez, Nina Arianda, Kathy Bates, Ronnie Allen, David Lengel

During the 1996 Summer Olympics in the American city of Atlanta, the world was shocked by a bomb attack in Centennial Olympic Park, the central place where all the ceremonies, festivities and performances surrounding the event took place. On the evening of July 27 – the Games were exactly halfway through – a pipe bomb was detonated. One person was killed and 111 others were injured. A Turkish cameraman suffered a fatal heart attack while running to the crime scene to film the events. Eighteen minutes before the explosion, the perpetrator had called 911 to warn that a bomb was about to explode and it was Richard Jewell, who was present at the event as a security guard on behalf of telephone company AT&T, who found the explosive under a park bench. Had he not acted appropriately, many more lives would undoubtedly have been lost. Jewell was briefly a national hero, lovingly telling his story in front of the cameras. However, it did not take long before the atmosphere completely changed and Jewell was suddenly seen as a possible perpetrator of the attack.

The power of the media, which can make someone as quickly as they can break someone, is the central theme in the film ‘Richard Jewell’ (2019) by good old Clint Eastwood. In recent years, the now very elderly filmmaker has been throwing himself more and more at ‘nobody’s’ who, despite the fact that they performed heroic deeds, are still viewed with suspicion. In ‘American Sniper’ (2014) it was sniper Chris Kyle, who was known as the deadliest Navy Seal in the US armed forces but whose military successes weighed heavily on his personal life. In ‘Sully’ (2016), pilot Chesley Sullenberger saves the lives of 155 people by making an emergency landing in the Hudson River, but the correctness of his actions has been questioned. And in ‘The 15:17 to Paris’ (2018), Eastwood puts three American students in the spotlight who foiled a terrorist attack on the Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris in 2015. That list also includes ‘Richard Jewell’, a film that aims to expose the risks of profiling and the dual role of the media.

Richard Jewell (played by the relatively unknown Paul Walter Hauser) could well be a ‘lone wolf’ on paper, capable of committing a terrorist attack. He’s a mother’s boy, a bit simple and naive but with a profound obsession with upholding the law. He once worked as a police officer, but was sidetracked because he took his job too seriously. He also didn’t last long as a security guard on a university campus, because he harassed students over the slightest thing (“I don’t want any Mickey Mousing on the campus”). After his heroic deed in the attack in the Centennial Olympic Park, he sees his chance to show himself to the entire country as the ultimate enforcer; someone who protects you at the risk of their own life. His mother Bobi (warm role by Kathy Bates, who earned an Oscar nomination with it) glows with pride of her only son. But then the mood changes: Richard fits perfectly into the perpetrator profile, especially given his impressive collection of firearms. FBI bobo Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) starts an investigation into Jewell, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) persuades him to share that information with her. Before long, Richard and his mother’s home is besieged by press mosquitoes and ransacked by FBI agents. It’s up to the downtrodden lawyer Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell, nice as ever), who remembers Richard from years ago, to prove Richard’s innocence and clear his name.

Had the events around Jewell happened twenty years later, the media hype with the influence of social media and the Internet would have been much greater, but even with the traditional media (written press, radio and TV) alone, the situation could apparently already be completely resolved. walking hand. ‘Richard Jewell’ shows that all too clearly: the media commit character murder on a man who happens to fit into a perpetrator profile, but how dangerous is it to point out the culprit purely on the basis of such a profile. Logistically, it was not possible for Jewell to carry out the attack at all. The film would have been more exciting if the doubts surrounding Jewell’s innocence had been stronger and Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray had left us in the dark for a while. Nevertheless, it is fascinating to see how quickly public opinion can change under the influence of publications, and how easily the media can copy news stories from each other. The acting is of a high level; the fact that Hauser is little known certainly has advantages in the sense that it becomes easier to see Jewell as ‘the common man’ who finds himself in an unusual situation. Hauser balances cleverly on the edge of childish naivety and a genuine will to follow the law as closely as possible. Wilde comes off a bit thin in a role that raises quite a bit of controversy; did Scruggs actually go into the suitcase with Shaw to get a scope? The tragedy is that both she and Richard Jewell are no longer able to defend themselves, as they both died young.

Eastwood does not ignore the facts in ‘Richard Jewell’ and exposes in a confrontational way how ruthlessly the media can influence public opinion and what consequences this can have. Strongly acted, sober drama that makes you think.