Richard Jewell

I distinctly remember the events surrounding the bombing at Centennial Park during the 1996 Atalanta Olympics (I love the Olympics so I usually watch continuous coverage) but I didn't really remember what happened with Richard Jewell, the security guard who became the prime suspect, so I was really eager to see his story portrayed in the movie Richard Jewell last night.  Clint Eastwood as a director is really hit or miss with me but I ended up liking this movie.  After he is fired for being overzealous as a campus security guard, Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) takes a job as a security guard at Centennial Park during the Olympics.  During a concert at the park, Jewell finds an unattended backpack in his area and, despite the fact that no one else finds it suspicious, he calls it into the bomb squad and tries to evacuate the area.  When the pipe bombs inside the backpack explode, wounding hundreds and killing two, he is credited with saving thousands of other lives.  However, FBI Agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) develops a profile of the perpetrator as a white male who is obsessed with law enforcement and yearns to be a hero and, since Jewell fits that profile, he becomes a suspect.  Journalist Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) discovers that Jewell is a suspect and writes a damning article about him.  Soon he and his mother (Kathy Bates) are harassed by the FBI and the media causing him to turn to down-and-out attorney Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) to defend him.  I found the story to be very compelling and, as I mentioned, I enjoyed learning what ultimately happened to Jewell because I didn't know his story.  The ensemble cast is outstanding but I was particularly impressed with Hauser's performance because he makes Jewell so sympathetic with a powerful stand up and cheer moment at the end.  I did, however, find the message about Jewell's innocence to be a bit heavy-handed and one sided.   I didn't like the way that Shaw and Scruggs are portrayed because they are almost caricatures of villains who are out to get Jewell personally.  Shaw (an amalgamation of several real-life characters) is totally unscrupulous and violates several laws to trick Jewell into cooperating while Scruggs sleeps with sources to get information and has someone else write her copy.  This movie would be more powerful if it was objective rather than skewed to fit a certain narrative.  Ultimately, I did like this movie and I would recommend it.