Clintan is back with a new film for the conservative demographic. After The Mule where he once again played his "racist but kind-hearted pensioner" cartoon, it is at least nice that Eastwood chose to stay behind the camera.
Richard Jewell is based on the true story of the security guard of the same name, who saved hundreds of people from death during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Jewell (played in the movie by Paul Walter Hauser from the Kingdom series) identified a suspicious bag that turned out to contain a bomb.
We also learn that he succeeded with this despite the difficult gutter because of all the junk food he printed in himself. Sure, not everything has to be painted in the world of film, but that doesn't mean everything has to be told.
Jewell is a man with many well-being, living at home with his mother and having unrealistic police dreams. The kind of cast that would be used for pathetic listening comics in a Seth Rogen comedy, but which Clint Eastwood wants to give proper restoration as an American hero.
Jewell was also quickly sanctified by the media after his heroic deed but shortly thereafter he himself was falsely accused of the crime. Jewell was involved in a rigorous investigation by the FBI and was soon also thrown into the media as the villain behind all terror.
Not many people have bothered to see Richard Jewell. It is one of Eastwood's least profitable films to date. But it has managed to inflame a minor controversy in American media because of the portrayal of Kathy Scruggs. The reporter (played by Olivia Wilde) who in the film lies with his FBI source (Jon Hamm) in exchange for telling him about the agency's investigation of Jewell.
Scruggs died in 2001 and cannot defend himself, but according to certain sources, this part of the story is completely invented. Still, Eastwood spreads a sexist idea of female journalists who gamble without conscience, and it's easy to get conspiratorial and see how the "fake news" hysteria marries the film's criticism of the FBI as their total Trump propaganda. However, that is not the case. The rest of Richard Jewell has been fact-checked and seems to agree with reality.
But that is not the film's biggest problem. Aside from the laugh-out-loud scene when Scruggs exchanges sex with secret information, the film as a whole is so boring, full-footed and tempo-wise apart that patience runs out somewhere in the middle. Despite an important lesson about what can happen when media does anything to sell, the lack of craft makes Richard Jewell an irrelevant film by 2020. Rather watch Nightcrawler, Natural born killers or even Anchorman for spiteful media criticism.