Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang
Perhaps the most reprehensible lingering disgrace in the ordeal suffered by Richard Jewell — during a lengthy nightmare laden with hourly indignities — is the fact that, to this day, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution maintains that it behaved responsibly.
 |
| Centennial Park security officer Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser, center) points law enforcement officers to a suspicious-looking backpack that has been abandoned beneath a bench near the sound-and-light tower adjacent to the performance stage, where Jack Mack and the Heart Attack are entertaining thousands of fans. |
To borrow a phrase from the younger generation, I call BS.
Jewell deserves to be remembered solely as the hero who, while working as a security guard at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, discovered a bomb-laden backpack and helped evacuate the crowded area before it exploded. He undoubtedly saved many, many lives.
Instead, he’s more likely remembered as the hapless individual who, three days later, was identified as the probable suspect who planted the bomb, thanks to an overzealous FBI investigation, inflammatory “reporting” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the hundreds of media outlets that subsequently fanned the flames.
Despite being cleared after an 88-day siege by media and all manner of law enforcement, Jewell undoubtedly remained a question mark in the minds of many, particularly since nobody initially was arrested for the heinous crime. It’s easy to imagine the rumor-mongering: “Maybe he did do it, but the FBI just didn’t have enough evidence…”
Even when Eric Rudolph confessed to being the bomber after being arrested in 2003, there was no way to wholly eradicate the avalanche of accusatory publicity that had buried Jewell and his equally hapless mother for 88 days. Retractions and “fresh truth” rarely have the impact of three months’ worth of screaming headlines.
Director Clint Eastwood and scripter Billy Ray — adapting Marie Brenner’s mesmerizing profile of Jewell, in the February 1997 Vanity Fair — have done their best to restore his honor, in a compelling drama fueled by powerhouse performances from Paul Walter Hauser and Kathy Bates, as Richard and his mother, Bobi. The result is a terrifying cautionary tale about the fragility of one’s place in society, and the ease with which an ordinary life can be ruined by authority and bad publicity.
Jewell’s ordeal truly is straight out of Kafka.
It’s therefore unfortunate — and more than a little ironic — that a film devoted to exposing a heinous act of character assassination, itself indulges in that same behavior. Olivia Wilde’s depiction of Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs — the actual real-world journalist — borders on cartoonish, particularly when contrasted with the solid, well-modulated performances in all other leading and supporting roles.
She’s depicted as a reckless, alcoholic, promiscuous attack dog who cheerfully trades sex for a nugget of information from imprudent FBI Agent Tom Shaw (a fictitious character played by Jon Hamm). Wilde’s Scruggs is brazenly arrogant and condescending in the newsroom, and hatefully aggressive in the field. Frankly, she’s a joke; it’s impossible to imagine that this woman ever functioned as a successful reporter.
It’s hard to accept Eastwood’s decision to direct her into such a performance; it’s even more ludicrous when Wilde’s Scruggs sheds a tear at a dramatic moment. There’s no way this woman, as depicted, would do that.
(In fairness, Scruggs was guilty of some of the sloppy reporting that ignited Jewell’s public disgrace, as Brenner’s article reveals, but there’s no indication that she was the tramp Wilde makes her. And since she died in 2001, she’s not around to defend herself.)
Fortunately, Wilde is vastly overshadowed by the superlative work from Hauser, Bates and Sam Rockwell, the latter as Jewell’s feisty attorney, Watson Bryant. Indeed, many of the scenes shared by Hauser and Bates, as Richard and his mother attempt to comfort each other amid such cruelly invasive treatment, are so intimately powerful that we viewers feel uncomfortable, as if we’re also unwanted intruders.
Hauser’s all-in performance makes Richard the sort of tragic figure who invites ridicule: corpulent and slow of speech, with a Southern drawl that further enhances the (completely unfair) suggestion of limited intelligence. He’s a hanger-on forever thrusting himself into conversational groups where he probably isn’t wanted: the sort of guy who’s tolerated in the moment, and then the butt of cruel comments after walking away.
But Richard also is sharply attuned to legal regulations and jargon, because he has long wanted to be a police officer: a profession for which he seems hopelessly ill-suited, if only because nobody ever would take him seriously. He therefore ingratiates himself with FBI agents early on, even as they target him as Suspect No. 1, believing himself to be “part of the team” … much to the what-have-we-got-here incredulity of Shaw and partner Dan Bennet (Ian Gomez).
This becomes one of the film’s gentle running gags. Bryant repeatedly admonishes Richard not to talk, but he keeps making spontaneous remarks that often make him sound like a fruit loop. The poor guy simply can’t help it.
Rockwell is equally nuanced as Bryant, an anti-establishment character who clearly doesn’t trust authority … and everything about Richard’s rapidly worsening plight merely reinforces such suspicions. By turns calmly analytical and spontaneously irate, Rockwell is completely believable as a Righteous Defender. (The real Watson Bryant must be thrilled by this portrayal.)
Costume designer Deborah Hopper even garbs Rockwell right out of Brenner’s article; during Bryant’s initial visit to the Jewell apartment, he navigates the scrum of shrieking reporters while wearing khaki shorts and a polo shirt. The casual appearance is disarming, which is precisely the point.
Although the actual Bryant eventually assembled a team of civil and criminal lawyers, Ray’s script consolidates all such legal entities into Rockwell’s character. That’s acceptable shorthand for dramatic simplicity, and it also gives Rockwell most of the film’s best verbal zingers.
This may be Bates’ strongest and most compelling performance, during a long career laden with similarly excellent work. Introduced as the epitome of a doting mother, Bobi positively beams during the first few days, while everybody lauds her son’s heroic action. Her subsequent crumbling begins with utter disbelief, and the confusion is plain in Bates’ eyes; the very notion that anybody — let alone everybody — would think her son such a monster, is simply beyond her comprehension.
The truly heartbreaking moment comes when FBI agents later swarm the apartment, examining, tagging and removing everything from her underwear — Bates’ embarrassment over this is palpable — to her beloved Tupperware containers. The violation feels mental and physical; Bates withers before our eyes.
The bogus “hero bomber” profile employed by the FBI — to make every detail of Richard’s resolutely ordinary, working-class life somehow sinister — is ignited by Ray Cleere (Charles Green), president of Piedmont College, where Jewell previously worked as a campus cop. (This sequence, and Jewell’s all-important early connection to Bryant, are depicted in early prologues to the fateful 1996 Olympics.)
Richard’s heavy-handed treatment of rebellious (partying) students make him a campus pariah, notably in Cleere’s eyes; Green plays the role with sublime subtlety, making him a stuffy little martinet who, like so many others, is put off by Richard’s “odd” behavior. Later, watching breaking news of the bombing, Cleere — a total weasel — feels “duty-bound” to contact the FBI and describe said behavior.
(Jewell later sued Cleere — also an actual person — and a second Piedmont exec for defamation of character. The college settled for an undisclosed sum.)
Tony Award winner Nina Arianda is terrific as Nadya Light, Bryant’s paralegal and sole employee: tart, slightly mocking — she doesn’t let him get away with anything — and absolutely convinced that Jewell is innocent, and that Bryant must take the case.
Niko Nicotera also stands out, as Richard’s scruffy best friend, Dave Dutchess (as with Nadya, an actual individual). Aside from being steadfast himself, in this film Dave stands in for the many real-world friends who never lost faith in Richard’s innocence.
Hamm’s Shaw is a superciliousness jerk who clearly has made up his mind — Jewell is guilty; end of story — and isn’t the least bothered by the fact that the FBI “profile” has been built to fit Jewell’s idiosyncrasies, rather than the other way around. Hamm always excels at stuffy arrogance, going back to his memorable turn on TV’s Mad Men.
We occasionally get a sense that Shaw’s partner might be more cautious, and perhaps doesn’t agree with how their case is developing, but Gomez isn’t given enough screen time to determine that either way.
Eastwood, a longtime jazz fan, has scored many of his films in that musical genre; it’s therefore no surprise that this one is handled by trumpet and flugelhorn maestro Arturo Sandoval (who also scored 2018’s The Mule). His sensitive themes bring even greater pathos to the barrage of injustice endured by Richard and Bobi.
In a heartfelt, honorable film otherwise assembled with considerable care, it’s a shame Wilde’s performance is such a distraction. But she certainly doesn’t obscure the saga’s deeply disturbing essence: the terrifying ease with which overstepping government entities and a concurrent “trial by media” can completely destroy an overwhelmed innocent.
It happened to Richard Jewell. It could happen to any one of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment