Paul Walter Hauser

(On Cable TV, August 2020) I find it fascinating that Clint Eastwood, once an unwitting icon of police vigilantism through his role in Dirty Harry, and later a conservative blowhard invited to the RNC, would choose as a late-career project something like Richard Jewell, which ends up being a scathing criticism of shoddy policing. Going back to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, it dredges up the real-life story of the security guard who, after finding an explosive device and initiating an evacuation that saved many lives, was then accused by the FBI and media of placing the bomb in the first place. A years-long investigation eventually established his innocence (the real bomber was eventually arrested in 2003), but the media circus and popular portrayal of Jewell never quite got rehabilitated. Which is reason enough for Richard Jewell to exist, even with fanciful adaptations (such as portraying a journalist offering to exchange sex for story tips from the FBI) and shortcuts. A relatively unknown Paul Walter Hauser does very well in the title role, with such known actors as Jon Hamm, Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates and Olivia Wilde to play supporting roles. Shot in Eastwood’s typically straightforward style, the film presents its case without too many stylistic flourishes, although taking some delight in vilifying the press along with the FBI officers convinced of Jewell’s guilt. It’s surprisingly cynical about the idea of cooperating with law enforcement when law enforcement is dead-set on completing the investigation quickly and calling it another case closed. Politically, you can see this film as all over the place: Critical of police, sure, but also critical of the media to an almost vituperative degree. Hardly perfect, but still interesting, Richard Jewell is going to make many film scholars very happy in how it either confirms and/or invalidates their entire thesis son Eastwood’s late-career filmography. For everyone else, it’s just an interesting film.