Richard Jewell

This past weekend I went and saw Richard Jewell.  I saw it for a few different reasons.  The first is that I really tend to like Eastwood movies.  I really liked Gran Torino and American Sniper and The Mule was good.  He does have some movies that I don’t like, such as the 15:17 to Paris.  While I thought the technical aspects of the movie were fine, I just didn’t see enough of a story there to entertain me.  So back to Jewell.

The movie itself is largely based on the real events.  You get to see how the media and the FBI just railroad him because either they are too lazy or too incompetent to realize he isn’t the guy. You get your first taste of the ‘fake news’ we have now, where the media runs with a rumor/tip and just destroys an innocent guys life. Politics aside, the movie itself is pretty good.  It runs just over 2 hours long and went by pretty fast. If you can put down your TDS a bit, you will enjoy the movie.

One of the complaints you may have heard about the movie is that it portraits the female reporter as a sleazy slutbag who slept with the FBI investigator to get her story.  You have the newspaper she worked for as well as a whole host of other reporters being butthurt over that, and the fact that they look really bad in this film.  I personally am tired of reporters trying to hold themselves out as somehow better people than most, deserving of special protections or praise.  We have movie after movie that portrait reporters as ‘selfless heroes, defending the poor and downtrodden’.  They get one movie that shows that they can be conniving little bitches and they go crazy.  Just to spite them I went to see this opening weekend.

After seeing the movie I am kind of surprised that GLADD or any of the rainbow alphabet grievance groups isn’t up in arms about one scene.  Not to give too much away but at one point the FBI suggests that Jewell was working with ‘his gay lover’ to pull off the bombing.  According to the movie he wanted to make it very clear to the FBI that he wasn’t gay, and blurted that out in a deposition.  OMG, he wants to proclaim is straightness as if being gay was BAD!  Well, back in the 80’s it didn’t have the public acceptance that it has now, so those type of feelings were historically accurate.

OK, last things about the movie itself.  Acting was very good. Sam Rockwell was brilliant. Direction was very good.  Story was well paced and it went by pretty fast for the 2 hour length.  And they gave Jewell the cutest beagle as his dog.  I love beagles.  if you are looking for an entertaining movie that is well made, go see Richard Jewell.