Movie Review: Richard Jewell

Richard Jewell is named after the security guard who spotted a backpack bomb in Centennial Park during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He saved an immense amount of lives by running around, warning the crowd to evacuate. The movie tells the true story of how he was falsely accused of being the bomber.

Jewell fit the profile of someone who would plant a bomb to then become a hero by finding it: He was white, male, and had a lifelong dream of becoming a police officer. The FBI distrusted such wannabe cops. The local paper managed to get a leak of the investigation, then ran with the story. Because of that, the FBI was under pressure to resolve things quickly, so they ramped up the pressure on him.

If my description of the movie seems simple, it’s because the movie tells his story in a plain, straight-forward manner. There are no plot gimmicks or forced melodrama. It simply shows what happened.

Paul Walter Hauser should get an Oscar nomination for his performance. Hauser completely becomes Richard Jewell, a working-class hero who has no idea how to grapple with the forces out to destroy him. And Kathy Bates as his longsuffering mother is amazing as she shows the anguish she went through.

Clint Eastwood produced and directed. He has complete credibility for this sort of movie. Those of you who are old enough will remember the saying, “It took Nixon to go to China.” That is, President Nixon was so thoroughly anti-Communist before and during his presidency, he could go and open relations with Communist China without the American people thinking he was betraying us. In the same way, Clint Eastwood as an actor is most famously known as his Dirty Harry character, who had to unflinchingly use lethal force to deal with the worst of street criminals. Obviously, Clint Eastwood is not anti-law enforcement. But he can show how horrible things can become when law enforcement goes out of control.

One of the FBI agents does say something interesting in the movie. A profile is just “a jumping-off point.” It’s just a start, but then they need evidence. Watch the movie and see if they ever have any.

Pearl Harbor Day—A day that will live in . . . ignorance?

These were real conversations that took place years ago in a previous workplace on a December 7th. After all, the people I work with can’t be this ... Well, we’ll see. The conversations were so remarkable, I jotted them down at the time.

photo by Stan Shebs 

Worker: Do you know what the significance of December 7^th is?

Co-Worker #1: No.

Worker: Think: What happened in December 7^th?

Co-Worker #1: The stock market crashed.

Worker: You are kidding me! This is the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Co-Worker #1: Well, that was before my era. That was your era.

Worker: Wait a minute! I wasn’t born in the 40’s.

Co-Worker #1: Well, we didn’t study about that in school. We studied things like World War II.

Worker: Pearl Harbor was a part of World War II!

Co-Worker #1: Well, we didn’t study that. We studied about the fighting and stuff.

Worker: That was part of the fighting! That was how we got into the war.

Co-Worker #1: Well, I know.

Then, maybe a minute later:

Worker: Can you tell me what day is today?

Co-Worker #2: Your birthday?

Worker: No, what happened today, December 7^th?

Co-Worker #2: I know what happened on December 8^th. John Lennon died.

Still later:

Worker: Can you tell me what happened today, December 7^th, in history?

Co-Worker #3: I don’t know.

Worker: Do you know?

Co-Worker #3: VJ Day?

Worker: Well, you’re the closest

What’s remarkable about these conversations is the co-workers show a level of intelligence, using words like “era,” remembering the date of John Lennon’s death, making a guess about VJ Day. But these people were stunningly ignorant about the obvious.

These conversations occurred before smartphones were around, so they can’t be blamed for lowering the IQs of these people. (This was from a very old piece of paper I unearthed while sorting through old things. It proved very timely for today.)

It reminds me of a girl in high school who was authentically dumb. (If this offends you, start your own blog and describe dumb guys.) In our junior or senior year, a huge map of Europe had been displayed on the chalkboard for the entire semester of our history class. It had the word “Europe” in large, black letters, curving across the entire continent.

public domain

Something like this, but with the letters larger and

going in a graceful curve across the continent

For some reason, she was standing towards the front of the class and staring at the map. She stared, stared, stared, looking increasingly confused. Finally she asked the teacher, “Where’s America on this map?”

The teacher paused for a moment to collect herself, then said calmly, “That’s a map of Europe.”

Without any hint of embarrassment or self-reproach, she said, “Oh.” She continued to stare at the map.

To her credit, she seemed to be well-liked.