Eastwood Film: The Ballad of Richard Jewell

LOL. Still suspends disbelief seeing Matt Damon playing Springbok captain Francois Pienaar, who in real life is a towering figure compared to Damon. And having watched that World Cup Final back in the day, despite the controversy that some of the All Black players suffered food poisoning, that was still a nail-biting final to watch. Heartbreaking that NZ lost, but they still played their hearts out even after a killer campaign (possibly my favourite AB line-up ever).

The Springboks back then were a team that many loved to hate, but they were still (and always will be) a formidable side for NZ (and Australia too).

Seeing these no-name actors in All Black jerseys (especially the late Jonah Lomu) kinda took me out of the movie though. The guy that played Andrew Mehrtens, the 1st Five-eighth...

 

The AJC compared Jewell to Wayne Williams - so they certainly fed into this particular line of profiling.

 

Saw this tonight, and I thought it was great. Second only to Once Upon A Time in Hollywood as my fave film this year.

 

I have a DVD of this movie and it seems a bit blurry to me. I initially thought the DVD might be a bootleg, but Blu-ray.com indicates the resolution of the Richard Jewell DVD is only 480i. Can this be correct? I cannot imagine a major motion picture studio in this day and age manufacturing a DVD with such low resolution.

 

I finally saw this movie a few weeks ago. I liked it and thought it was well acted and told a compelling story.

 

I saw thiscsome time ago and quite enjoyed it. Felt rather sorry for RJ, for all of his faults.

 

The movies directed by Eastwoord have always been to the right-end of the political spectrum, but I could always enjoy them for what they were.

But after the disgraceful Sully, he crossed a line as far as I'm concerned. Now, I know little about the man and the case of Richard Jewell but making the media and the FBI look bad surely did well with some fat guy living in a big, white house when this was released didn't it now?

 

What was wrong with it? I didn't see anything political there, let alone "right-end". If anything, I saw a typical "government trying to CYA and pin the tail on the good guy" Hollywood angle that, if anything, usually comes from the "left-end". I'd like to see it again, so I'll be on the look-out for the nasty righty stuff.

 

Do you mean the movie Sully? Half that movie didn't happen, including the hearing which is fabricated from beginning to end. Commercial aviation is one of the safest means of transportation today, partly because of professionals like the ones working for the NTSB. If you don't see the political angle here, I'm sorry, can't help you there.

 

One of those "if you don't know then I'm certainly not going to tell you" things? So he hates the NTSB? That's "right-end"? He's too much into hero worship? Is that right end? He makes stuff up? That certainly cuts in the other direction. If you cannot tell me, or at least hint at it to assuage the Gorts, then that's at least as much you as me.

 

I'm not trying to be argumentative and I understand that this is getting off topic and into forbidden territory (so I'll stop). But PM me if you can and explain what you mean. I'm seriously at a loss here. I'm typically very good at spotting this kind of stuff, and I'm at a total loss about what you think is obvious.

 

um, no.

 

Oh. Totally. No ifs, ands or ums about it.

 

Not at all. The last four years have shown us on a daily basis that’s not the case.

 

Not at all. The last 70 years, including the last 4, have shown us on a daily basis that’s not the case.

 

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you. Please clarify what you’re claiming here. It appears you’re intimating that only one side “makes things up”, which clearly isn’t true on any level and is a statement that actually negates the argument you’re trying to make.

 

In regards to Richard Jewell the press made his life a living hell. I live outside of Atlanta and read about all the accusations on a daily basis. Poor guy was a hero and he got treated like crap. Eastwood certainly is a conservative but I see this movie as more a guy getting screwed than anything else. I don’t agree with your Trump angle.

 

I watched lt when it was released and thought it very good. I already knew the events and how they unfolded. It was a tale that was way long overdue for telling especially as the unholy alliance of corporate media and gov. has grown even greater. It's too bad they thought Christmas was a good time to release it.

 

I finally got a chance to watch the film (Walmart is practically giving DVDs away) having wanted to since the film was released.

As I’d said previously in this thread, I was - and still am - a Summer Olympics junkie and will watch as much as I can. I remember very clearly, the news breaking on the bombing and watching as all of it unfolded in the subsequent days.

I’m not very much of a Clint Eastwood fan, though I have enjoyed some of his films in the past, just not the westerns, and I hated Mystic River. I go into this film as one who is somewhat skeptical of people in power and that includes the media. Not sure where that puts me on the political spectrum, but that’s my default setting. I’m also aware that this film itself is media and is showing me what it wants me to see.

Having said that, I very much enjoyed the film. I thought it was careful to present Jewel as an odd duck, but one who is generally well meaning. John Hamm’s character in my opinion came across as the main villain of the film. This was especially driven home in the scene at the end when he delivered the exoneration letter. I feel it stops short of an indictment of the system, though. As the film points out, via Jewel’s lawyer, Hamm’s character is not the Government, he just works for it. Splitting hairs, perhaps, but that’s how I took it.

The Scruggs “caricature” is certainly problematic, and the “sex for story” trope was cringey, but I liked how the film did show her view change and elements of remorse, which they didn’t have to do. It should be noted, that being remorseful doesn’t incriminate one’s self. Scruggs didn’t need to have to try and destroy Jewel in order for her to regret what happened to him, nor do I feel this is some lame morality tale where the fallen woman repents her sins, others may disagree.

I agree with what others have said, the performances were excellent throughout and I’m surprised that they didn’t get more nominations.

In an unintended parallel, I recently finished reading Room 1219, an account of the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle scandal from 1921. While there are some differences (Jewel wasn’t a public figure prior to the bombing, Jewel never went to trial, and Jewel was unequivocally innocent, while ambiguity will always surround the Arbuckle case) there are quite a few similarities.

The fact that both men were very much overweight I think played in to some of the vilification - the big fat man must be a monster (or can’t be a hero/innocent) is a too common cliche in our image based society. One has to wonder if this would have played out differently had Jewel fit the image of the hero. Sure, he was treated as such initially, but would the fall from grace have been that swift, easy, or intentional?

Maybe, but both stories show how easily the media can completely destroy an individual without needing much evidence.

Overall, I would lay much of the blame there, for this case. The Feds needed to investigate, and even if Scruggs broke the story, it didn’t need to be the narrative, but once the dam burst, that was that. The film isn’t perfect, but in taking to a lot of people, many didn’t know the story. So perhaps it’s not one that people asked for, but certainly it’s a story that people needed reminding of, the guy was a hero after all.

 

Saw it yesterday. Great movie.