Richard Jewell Review

At the age of 89, Clint Eastwood is still a prolific director and his latest film, Richard Jewell is his best film in a decade.

Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) was a man who admires law enforcement and wants to become a law enforcement officer. Unfortunately, he has issues with overstepping his authority. During the 1996 Olympic Games Jewell worked as a security guard in Centennial Park where he notices a suspicious backpack. Jewell immediately gets hailed as a hero but soon becomes the FBI’s prime suspect.

Richard Jewell was made to be like a legal thriller. When Jewell gets accused by the press and the FBI the film turns into a story where Jewell and his legal team set out to prove the man’s innocence. The film follows the template of films like Erin Brockovich where a small-time lawyer was given the case of a lifetime and takes on a powerful organisation.

Richard Jewell had a formula to follow and it does well. Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray are pros so it’s to be expected from them. There were the key scenes like Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) and his assistant, Nadya (Nina Arianda) looking for holes in the FBI’s case, and Bryant finding out about Jewell’s past that could jeopardise the defence.

The legal thriller was a genre that was popular in the ’90s and Richard Jewell has the air of a ’90s films. This was done through the music and actions of the actors. There were emotional swells and inspiring moments that were ramped up in films from this era.

Clint Eastwood and Billy Ray come up with a functional film: the screenplay set up things that come into play later. The film has two key themes. The first was Jewell’s personal journey because he was in awe with law enforcement yet suffers at their hand when they investigate him. They mock and humiliate Jewell as they look for any evidence against him.

The other theme was a broader one – an indictment of American law enforcement and the media. Richard Jewell the FBI agents do many unethical actions when investigating Jewell. They try to trick him into signing an official document to say he had his rights read to him, and the agents seek to separate Jewell from his lawyer. The main agent, Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) feigns kindness and friendship to try and get Jewell to incriminate himself. Even when the evidence goes against the FBI’s case the organisation seeks to rework their theory rather than acknowledge they were wrong.

The media were the ones who exposed Jewell as a suspect and force the FBI to bring in the man earlier than they wanted. The media constantly hound Jewell and his mother (Kathy Bates) which puts an unbearable amount of stress on the woman. It was like The Simpsons episode “Homer Badman” where the main character gets labelled as a villain and confirms their narrative. Arguably the American media is even worse because of the 24-hour news cycle whilst experts and journalists constantly analyse every little bit of information. To non-Americans, this is alien because they are laws against reporting on active police investigations to ensure there isn’t any prejudice.

Richard Jewell has faced criticism for its portrayal of Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde), a local journalist who exposed Jewell. She was a walking cliché, a gum-chewing journalist who will do anything to get a scoop and utter a bitch to her colleagues. The worst aspect was the film making out that Scruggs slept with her sources and banged them for information. Scruggs died in 2001 so she has no way to defend herself, although her colleagues have said she never acted in this way. The best defence for the film is they wanted to show the FBI and the media to be equally unethical, but the filmmakers didn’t need to slander a real woman to do this.

Richard Jewell was a well-crafted legal thriller that worked as a true-life story and legal drama.