BEFORE: I can stay on the crime topic for a few more films, though I think I'll have to dip into some more courtroom-based dramas, but then I'll finish off April (and start May) with a few more action films. Here's a hint at what to expect in May, other than two Mother's Day films: a couple of period pieces, two films with Albert Finney, three with Ralph Fiennes and three more with Charlotte Rampling, a little Molly Shannon and some Maya Rudolph, I'll catch up on 6 animated films in the middle of the month, along with one live-action remake of an animated film, get to those three Timothee Chalamet films that I passed on back in March, 3 films with Will Forte and 3 more with Stephen Merchant, a couple school-based films and that all should get me to "Phantom Thread" at the end of the month. Hopefully by then I'll be back working at both studios and maybe I can pick up some more screeners, the ones I have are only going to get me to May 31, and I'd rather not have to pay $5.99 to watch "Knives Out". But, I will if I have to.
Wayne Duvall carries over again (last time, I swear) from "The Kitchen".
THE PLOT: Security guard Richard Jewell saved many lives from an exploding bomb at the 1996 Olympics, but was vilified by journalists who falsely reported tht he was a terrorist.
AFTER: Man, Clint Eastwood keeps cranking out movies, doesn't he? The man's turning 90 (!!) in May this year, and there's been about one Eastwood movie a year for the last decade or two - "J. Edgar", "Jersey Boys", "American Sniper", "Sully", "The Mule", and now this one. (I'm going to get to "The 15:17 to Paris" soon, I promise, it's just more difficult to link to.). But all that at an age where most people would have been retired for 20 years, hey, more power to him - and the last few have all been in some form of Oscar contention, I'm watching "Richard Jewell" on an Academy screener because it's only available on the streaming services at the price of $5.99. Probably worth it since all the movie theaters are closed right now, so any rental fee could be off-set by the money I'm saving by staying home, but I'd still rather watch for free.
In some ways this seems like the antithesis to "The Mule", where an older man got away with running drugs because he seemed like the last person they'd suspect. Richard Jewell seemed like the first person they'd suspect to be a bomber, only, funny story, he was innocent. Whoops, sorry, SPOILER ALERT regarding the 1996 Atlanta terrorist bombing in Centennial Park. Jewell fit the profile, apparently, of the type of person who would plant a bomb and then pretend to find it in order to gain publicity as a hero. You can't say this doesn't happen, because there was that volunteer firefighter in Australia last year who set wildfires just so he could help put them out. Over time law enforcement developed a profile of the type of person with "hero syndrome" who might commit a crime like arson or a bomb threat, just to have the chance to save the day - white male, from a broken home, poor relationship with his father, lacking in social skills, overly fascinated with law enforcement or firefighting, possible alcoholism, depression or suicidal tendencies. Try to ignore the fact that this sounds like it describes about 30% of all Americans.
Add on the fact that Jewell had a bunch of guns (duh, he was from Georgia, liked to hunt) and still lived with his mother (never a good sign) had a spotty unemployment record and had also been fired from a county sheriff's office. He didn't just fit the profile, he exemplified it, and then once they started digging into his life, the FBI kept finding more things that encouraged them to keep digging. To a certain extent this is routine, since whoever finds a dead body MIGHT have known exactly where to look because they're also the killer, and if that person was a spouse or close relative, the statistics go WAY up, what does that tell you about the human race? Some years ago they came up with a new category, somewhere under "suspect", which is called "person of interest". But either way, the damage is done, anyone named as such can get automatically tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. Remember Gary Condit? He was a U.S. congressman named as a "person of interest" in the disappearance of a young woman named Chandra Levy when it was revealed that he was having an affair with her. All across the U.S., people started to believe he had killed her, and it took years for the truth to be revealed. Her murder was later tied to a man who'd killed several women in the same D.C. area park, but the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks pushed the story out of the headlines, so most people never bothered to follow-up.
Eventually there was another bomb attack in Atlanta in January 1997, while the FBI was shadowing and harassing Jewell. The Feds named Eric Rudolph the likely bomber in 1998, only they didn't catch him until 2003 because he was hiding in the wilderness somewhere in Appalachia. Rudolph's attacks were meant to protest abortion and the "homosexual agenda", but his family believed he was innocent, and his brother even cut off his own left hand to "send a message" to the FBI. But all that is sort of tangential to the film, which just focuses on how one man's life could be disrupted just because the media was so eager to name a suspect that it proceeded without doing proper research or due diligence on the story, which put Jewell in the public eye without a proper chance to defend himself.
Are there lessons to be learned here? Sure, but nothing really related to our current pandemic. Unless you're looking for one of those silver lining things, like the fact that there hasn't been a school shooting in the U.S. since they closed all of the schools. If I follow that line of thinking, there also hasn't been any trouble related to a sporting event or concert, or anyone trying to shoot crowds at a movie theater. Remember the Las Vegas concert shooting in 2017? My wife and I were in Vegas last October, and that city was just starting to have outdoor concerts again - one was right by our hotel in the downtown area, unfortunately it was a heavy metal event called "Las Rageous" and it was so loud we couldn't get to sleep on our first night in town. Or what about the bombing at the Eagles of Death Metal show in France in 2015, or the nightclub shootings in Orlando in 2016? There's been none of that lately while we're all in lockdown, so that's all positive, right? Everyone's so eager to re-start the economy and get back to crowded stadiums, outdoor concerts and other big public events, and I'm thinking, "Hmm, let's not be so hasty." Maybe baby steps are needed, because once you open up big events again, you also create opportunities for terrorists, and hopefully security personnel won't be so busy checking people's temperatures that they neglect to check for weapons and bombs.
Another good pandemic lesson here is to not automatically assume that the government or its agents knows what they're talking about, especially if the moron in charge tells people to drink bleach or inject disinfectant or promotes an untested medication, probably because some friend of his has stock in a particular pharmaceutical company. The media, by the way, learned NOTHING about not jumping the gun from the Richard Jewell case, because all the outlets today rushed to run some story about Pepcid being studied as a possible Covid cure when combined with hydroxychloroquine. They ALL had to mention that the medicine was untested, but remember that the last time they ran a story like this, there was a speculative run on hydroxychloroquine, and people with lupus who depended on this medication couldn't get it. Hmm, you don't suppose this new rumor could have been started by the manufacturers of Pepcid, do you? The responsible thing to do today was to NOT run any story at all about Pepcid, but they all took the bait, what a bunch of morons.
It's also a good idea to assume that governments doesn't know what it's doing if they're trying to re-open businesses too early, as scientists have warned that this could cause a reversal of the progress we've made in fighting the spread of the virus, so please, I know it's tough to stay home and not go bowling or to a bar or to a restaurant, but by continuing the closure orders, collectively we prevent further outbreaks or backsliding in our progress. If the government was wrong about Richard Jewell and suspected him just on a "feeling" and no evidence, they can be wrong about when it's safe to re-open the country.
The actor who plays Jewell is a bit of a cipher, sort of like the man himself. I honestly couldn't tell if the actor was just sort of being himself, or was so lost in the character that I couldn't distinguish the two from each other. But maybe that was OK, because the real guy seemed a little naive, almost child-like, but sort of unbelievably sincere at the same time. Honest and overly talkative to a fault, sort of like that awkward kid in high school who rambles on when the discussion comes to a topic he knows too much about, and he doesn't realize that the other people in the conversation aren't really into that hobby, and want to move on to another topic. Jewell knew a lot about police procedure, but that was part of his line of work, and by rambling on he came off as a guy who maybe knew just a bit too much.
Sam Rockwell, on the other hand - he's always good. He plays Jewell's friend and lawyer here, and come on, I dare you to name a film that he doesn't shine in. I'm glad I now live in a world where Sam Rockwell has an Oscar, I think I first noticed him in a little film at Sundance called "Jerry and Tom" back in 1998, and since then, wow, what a resumé - "Galaxy Quest", "The Green Mile", "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "Moon", "Vice", and of course "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri". He's already made my year-end countdown, and so has Kathy Bates, but I'm going to try to get to two more of his films, "Jojo Rabbit" and "The Best of Enemies" if I can before 2020 is done.
And now I know what band was playing at Centennial Park when the bomb went off in 1996 - it was Jack Mack & The Heart Attack. They claim here that was the favorite band of Richard Jewell, I'll wager that perhaps he's the only one. What's funny is that after this film was over, I switched over to PBS which was running a special of musicians covering Chuck Berry songs, and other than a couple songs from the "Police Academy" movies, what's Jack Mack & The Heart Attack most famous for? Recording the version of "Johnny B. Goode" that was heard in "Back to the Future", the one that Michael J. Fox was lip-synching to. Well, at least it was lead singer Mark Campbell providing Marty McFly's singing voice.
Also starring Paul Walter Hauser (last seen in "Late Night"), Sam Rockwell (last seen in "Laggies"), Kathy Bates (last seen in "The Blind Side"), Jon Hamm (last seen in "Bad Times at the El Royale"), Olivia Wilde (last seen in "Drinking Buddies"), Ian Gomez (last seen in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2"), Nina Arianda (last seen in "Stan & Ollie"), Dylan Kussman (last seen in "The Mule"), Grant Roberts (ditto), Alan Heckner (ditto), Mike Pniewski (last seen in "American Made"), Alex Collins (ditto), Eric Mendenhall, Desmond Phillips, Randy Havens (last seen in "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"), Billy Slaughter (last seen in "The Highwaymen"), John Atwood (last seen in "Killers"), Niko Nicotera (last seen in "Secret in Their Eyes"), Garon Grigbsy, Ronnie Allen, with archive footage of Muhammad Ali (last seen in "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"), Katie Couric (ditto), Tom Brokaw (last seen in "Definitely, Maybe"), Bill Clinton (ditto), Michael Johnson.
RATING: 6 out of 10 Tupperware containers
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