14/01/19
We’re only two weeks into the new year, yet we’re already on our third excoriating movie exposé of a corrupt American justice system. Appalled? Yes. Saddened? Yes. Surprised? Not so much. Not any more.
Richard Jewell is the story of a hapless security guard, the focus of an intense FBI and media investigation. His crime? Discovering a bomb and alerting the authorities. But lazy stereotyping (‘he’s a bit of an oddball and he lives with his mom’) is enough to convince the forces-that-be that Jewell is the perpetrator, responsible for two deaths and more than a hundred injuries, despite a lack of any evidence whatsoever. And, once that suspicion is leaked to the press, Jewell loses control of his life.
Paul Walter Hauser gives us a convincing portrayal of a decent man driven almost to despair. He portrays Jewell as utterly sincere – a naïve, mild-natured, over-zealous employee, a stickler for the rules. His mother, Bobi (Kathy Bates), has always taught him to respect authority, and Jewell has absolute faith in law and order. He is devastated when it proves to be a phoney, a façade.
Sam Rockwell plays Watson Bryant, the real estate lawyer who comes to Jewell’s rescue (in real life, Bryant employed a team to help him; here – for the sake of a stronger storyline – he goes it alone). It’s a terrific performance, giving us a real sense of the man’s selfishness and impatience as well as his deep-rooted morality. Thank goodness for Bryant; I dread to think what might have happened to Jewell if he hadn’t once worked in the same building and earned the man’s respect. Without representation, who knows?
It’s so depressing. How can a so-called mature democracy have a justice system that is so blatantly unfair, where guilt or innocence is decided by how much money an individual has, or by the colour of their skin, or by how desperate the law enforcers are to meet their targets? And Eastwood’s film delivers this message well.
A shame, then, that the women’s roles are so reductive, and that real-life AJC news reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) is depicted as having slept her way to success. It’s an evidence-free stereotype as offensive and pervasive as the one the movie exposes.
It’s not the film’s only fault. Billy Ray’s script is somewhat pedestrian – long-winded in places – and the cinematography a little murky but, nevertheless, taken in conjunction with Seberg and Just Mercy, this amounts to a searing condemnation of a broken institution.
3.5 stars
Susan Singfield
Bouquets & Brickbats 