Richard Jewell a deep character study undermined by politics

Sam Rockwell and Paul Walter Hauser in Richard Jewell. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

What's worrisome about Richard Jewell is how far down the rabbit hole director Clint Eastwood fell. The numerous splendid moments of filmmaking and the brilliance of the dive into the film's central figure is nearly overlapped by a pervading sense of paranoia from the director about bureaucracy conspiring against an average white man. This is Eastwood's millstone, an inability to see the humanity driving the institutions he fears.

Richard Jewell stars Paul Walter Hauser as the eponymous security guard, an unremarkable man who saves hundreds of lives after discovering a bomb at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Despite the act of courage, Jewell's grandiose dreams and odd past behavior draw the attention of FBI agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm), who suspects Jewell planted the bomb himself to become famous. Shaw leaks the investigation to tenacious reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde), which instantly turns Jewell from a hero to a villain. With the help of attorney Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) and his mother Bobbi (Kathy Bates), Jewell fights against the forces opposing him to clear his name.

Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray dive incredibly deep into its central character to reveal a man whose shining moment of competence nearly ruins his life. Underneath the hushed voice and abundances of “sirs” is a man with a healthy ego and aspirations for mild greatness as a law enforcement official. Jewell is a legitimate hero who saved multiple lives, but Richard Jewell isn't afraid to show the human side – especially the ego – pushing that heroism. In an era defined by heroes who are so far above human realism they are barely relatable, it is pleasant to see a man's flaws result in an act of courage. To paraphrase an Emerson quote, the difference between a hero and ordinary folk is five minutes of courage, and the film mines a lot from that idea.

The humanity Eastwood and Ray provide for Jewell are not afforded to the forces opposing him. The battle in Richard Jewell is the fight between a decent guy and powerful institutions – government and the media – out to ruin his life, but the humans representing those forces come across as cartoonish in comparison. Shaw's motivations are flat and uninvestigated, his presence more stereotypical than nuanced. The film's portrayal of Scruggs, whose name was not changed for this film, is far more concerning. She's not only depicted not simply as a woman who is willing to sleep with a source for information, but a terrible journalist and even worse human being, celebrating the deaths of innocent people to advance her career. And despite the film's take on her reporting, her article was correct and had additional sourcing the film implies did not exist. 

Neither Shaw nor Scruggs should be a villain in this film. They were two people doing their jobs in the aftermath of incredible act of violence and terror, consumed by a need to rush for truth and information. They were human, yet Eastwood and Ray cannot find that humanity. This is becoming a trend for Eastwood, who took a similar approach with Sully. In both film, the actions of the main characters are impugned by governmental investigation to the point the terror of the initial actions are overshadowed by the bureaucracy. Even if the case against Richard Jewell was untrue, the idea the government overstepped by conducting an investigation is ludicrous. Yet this is the worldview Eastwood presents in Richard Jewell, a fever dream in which good white men are persecuted for their good deeds. These ideas permeate so deep into this film it overshadows some stellar filmmaking. The sequence when Jewell first finds the bomb through the inevitable explosion is filled with brilliant tension worthy of Hitchcock. Eastwood plays with the audience's knowledge that the bomb will go off, throwing in some hints of a timeline to mess with perspective and keep the actual moment of detonation a shock to viewers. That moment should be the film's centerpiece, yet Eastwood gets so lost in the ensuing legal issues the power of that moment becomes window dressing. Richard Jewell is a good film, but Eastwood pursuit of victimhood prevents his film from becoming anything more than that.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 129 minutes

Genre: Drama

tl;dr

What Worked: Richard Jewell, Paul Walter Hauser

What Fell Short: Secondary Characters, Politics, Lazy Foreshadowing

What To Watch As Well: Shattered Glass

Messy Jojo Rabbit misses the sweet spot between farce and gravitas

Taika Waititi and Roman Griffin Davis in Jojo Rabbit. Image courtesy Fox Searchlight.

Jojo Rabbit is a mess, albeit a mess made with affection and care. Writer/director Taika Waititi sometimes gets across some of the points he wants and landing a couple of effective punches, but ultimately cannot maintain the gravitas he wants and needs. Jojo Rabbit is disappointing, but in a fairly interesting way. 

The film stars Roman Griffin Davis as the eponymous Jojo, a 10-year-old wannabe Nazi living in a quiet German village with his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson). After an incident with a grenade ends his dreams of serving Hitler, Jojo volunteers to work around town for the insouciant Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell), his assistant Finkel (Alfie Allen), and Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson). Jojo is prone to an active imagination and many misperceptions about the Jewish people, which are spurred by frequent conversations with an imaginary Hitler (played by Waititi). Jojo's life shifts dramatically once he finds the young Jewish woman Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding from the Nazis in his home. Elsa's presence begins to shift Jojo's perspective on everything he knows, just as the war winds down and his village succumbs to chaos. 

There's a fair amount going on with Jojo Rabbit, and Waititi does pull some of it off. The film is fine as a coming of age story, even though the main character is a stone's throw away from being a Nazi. There's a nice little theme about finding heroism in the small moments, whether it's secretly placing anti-Nazi propaganda around town or expressing oneself amid tyranny. Waititi has some good points about how little effort it takes for outright stupidity to evolve into commonplace evil; it's easy to make fun of folks who believe Jewish people have horns, at least until they start slaughtering them based on that belief. The film's farcical nature cuts deepest with this point, due in part to the timeliness of such ideology. 

It's difficult for films to shift between absurdity and seriousness given how far the gap is between the two. Waititi, to his credit, sometimes succeeds at doing exactly that. One sequence in particular, a sequence where Jojo Rabbit takes a “heil Hitler” joke and turns it into a menacing moment for Elsa, is quite striking. It's a really stunning moment in which the films reminds viewers the initial the joke comes from a rather dark place and comes with terrible consequences. When Jojo Rabbit makes contact with its target, it hits with precision and force. But the film's batting average is right around the Mendoza line, failing more often than not to square up on those little moments of insight. The final battle scene, the moment when Jojo witnesses the consequences of his dreams, lacks the effectiveness found in the far smaller moment below. It's more silly than stern, suffering from the Life is Beautiful problem of taking an atrocity too lightly. 

The biggest issue with Jojo Rabbit is Waititi himself. His imaginary Hitler shifts the film's otherwise absurdist tone toward twee and cute, adding more layers to the film's constant tonal shifts. The violence meant to jolt the audience loses its effect because the tone is already too far above the grand for viewers to land in the midst of the horror. Having Hitler as an imaginary friend is the film's selling point, yet it's a joke doesn't go anywhere of interest. And his Hitler isn't an interesting take on the character; Mel Brooks took a similar approach around 50 years ago to much greater effect. Making Hitler flamboyant is also an easy choice, a simple way of converting a horror villain into a silly little thing. Jojo Rabbit has a lot of these uninspired decisions as lazy shorthand to the audience. Captain Klenzendorf's motivation for casually ignoring Nazism starts off as a really interesting study of a warrior no longer allowed to fight, but ends up as a gay joke. The soundtrack is uber literal, ending with the most obvious David Bowie song imaginable because lazy thematic resonance. This film is, or at least should be, more interesting than these choices. It should challenge the audience more often than it does, give them room to reflect a little about why they're laughing at the jokes. Jojo Rabbit ultimately loses its focus and can't deliver the knockout punch it winds up to strike.

Review: Three out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 108 minutes

Genre: Comedy

tl;dr

What Worked: Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, Some Themes

What Fell Short: Taika Waititi's Hitler, Tonal imbalance, Banality

What To Watch As Well: The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Producers