SF Chronicle Review: ‘Richard Jewell’ is Clint Eastwood’s best movie in years

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Dec 11 2019 | Mick LaSalle

[rintintin]

He just seemed the type. He lived with his mother. He had lots of guns in the house. He dreamed of being a police officer. He wanted to be important. He knew everything about bombs. And so, for 88 days Richard Jewell — who was not only an innocent man, but a hero, who’d saved lives — had his own life torn apart, when he became the prime suspect in the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. 1996.

“Richard Jewell,” which tells his story, is a suspenseful, beautifully composed film from Clint Eastwood, his finest since “Hereafter” (2010) — and probably the best film ever made by an 89-year-old director. Eastwood has not yet entered the beautiful miniature stage of his career. He is not even Matisse making collages. “Richard Jewell” tells a grand-scale American story of a kind that this filmmaker is known for.

[MayflowerMadam]

“raised to respect authority, something stated in the movie 3 times, I think.”

Yes. He worshiped law enforcement and was in awe of the FBI. They saw that, used that, and taunted him.

Eastwood always does a good job, that this movie was excellent, although sad.

[gaijin]

Exactly.

In me, the movie evoked rage tinged with sadness.

I mean, there’s this Wiser Me now, yet I yearn to return to the nicer me, when I was stupider under the delusion, “The Feds Are Good”.

Sorry, those days are OVER.

I’m smarter, but sad for it.

[georgia peach]

Eric Rudolph, who hid in the mountains for years but they finally caught him.Jailed.This is a excellent movie,BTW.

[traderrob6]

“Good, Bad the Ugly” classic Spaghetti Western. One of
Sergio Leone’s best efforts.

Great movie but was only referring to movies Eastwood directed.

[gaijin]

I believe they caught Eric Rudolph, the real Atlanta Bombing Perp just 6 years ago.

He was on the run maybe 1.5 DECADES..?

A master of being on the lam, I would say.

I think he was digging in a dumpster and a common street cop stopped him.

But for that chance encounter he might have been a free man today, too.

[gaijin]

Whoops!

Eric Rudolph was on the run for 5 years, not 15, many times he was surviving in the wilderness.

He had been in the 101 Airborne and had gone to Air Assault school.

[Lurker]

Yes. Eric Rudolph.

L

[gaijin]

From wikipedia:

Rudolph was arrested in Murphy, North Carolina on May 31, 2003 by rookie police officer Jeffrey Scott Postell of the Murphy Police Department while Rudolph was looking through a dumpster behind a Save-A-Lot store at about 4 a.m.

snip

Rudolph was unarmed and did not resist arrest. When arrested, he was clean-shaven with a trimmed mustache, had dyed black hair and wore a camouflage jacket, work clothes, and new sneakers.[18][19]

snip

On April 8, 2005, the Department of Justice announced that Rudolph had agreed to a plea bargain under which he would plead guilty to all charges he was accused of in exchange for avoiding the death penalty.

The deal was confirmed after the FBI found 250 pounds (110 kg) of dynamite he hid in the forests of North Carolina. His revealing the hiding places of the dynamite was a condition of his plea agreement.[20]

Rudolph released a statement explaining his actions; he rationalized the bombings as serving the cause of anti-abortion and anti-gay terrorism.

Motivations

Rudolph has made it clear in his written statement and elsewhere that the purpose of the bombings was to fight against abortion and the "homosexual agenda." He considered abortion to be murder, the product of a "rotten feast of materialism and self-indulgence"; accordingly, he believed that its perpetrators deserved death, and that the United States government had lost its legitimacy by sanctioning it. He also considered it essential to resist by force "the concerted effort to legitimize the practice of homosexuality" in order to protect "the integrity of American society" and "the very existence of our culture", whose foundation is the "family hearth."[7]

Wow..!!

Eric Rudolph, above

[gaijin]

Richard Jewell revered the FBI, they hated him

Eric Rudolph hated the FBI:

WHAT DO THEY THINK OF HIM...?

[gaijin]

Eric Rudolph, in freedom

[M. Thatcher]

loved loved Grand Camino

I believe that's "Gran Torino."

[Varda]

That wiki page looks like straight up propaganda. I wonder if the FBI edited it.

[gaijin]

Abu Sayeef, muzzie commie terrorists from the Phillipines, described being sometimes met by “The Farmer”, a tall, thoughtful American who’d been in the army and had been a farmer in the USA:

That is almost a perfect of Terry Nichols.

Nichols had been Timothy McVeigh’s OkBomb partner.

Nichol’s wife was from the Phillipines and before Nichols flew to the Phillipines before OKBomb, he secreted a large amount of cash in the attack for her IN CASE HE DID NOT COME BACK.

Does ANYONE really think we know the whole truth about OkBomb.

NO WE DO NOT.

Know WHY the Phillipe cops turned Nichols away on his first attempt to fly back to the USA?

Cuz it appeared he’d been trying to take BOMB PARTS onto the aircraft.

They looked into the call pattern logged to a CALL CARD McVeigh had been using and you know WHERE he had been calling?

To a payphone right before a well-known Abu Sayeef hideout in the Phillipines.

[TigersEye]

As I’ve said a few times before; I wouldn’t call the FBI if a column of ISIS technicals was driving up my road.

[lodi90]

That wiki page looks like straight up propaganda. I wonder if the FBI edited it.

---

Dems are trying to tie Rudolph in with “white supremacy”. Meaning, of course, Trump.

[Inyo-Mono]

Thanks for posting that again.

[gaijin]

Funny you said that cuz that very point was brought up in the movie, and I'd forgotten that Jewell had brought it up to the face of the FBI:

"In view of how this played out for me, what is going to happen the NEXT time someone like me spots a bomb in the future..? Well, he's going to want to avoid being the next Richard Jewell, and he'll simply run away AND SAY NOTHING..."

Was he right..?

Probably yes.

[Yardstick]

That comment will earn me no friends here, I believe, but there it is.

---

Well, it did make me chuckle, for what it’s worth.

[TigersEye]

I’d say he was right. I felt that way after Ruby Ridge and it was reinforced after Waco but it wasn’t an absolute to me that they couldn’t be trusted for anything at all. The last three years has cured me of ever giving them the benefit of a doubt again.

There isn’t a grain of hyperbole in my statement in post #54.

[rxh4n1]

The FBI sniper at Ruby Ridge was a cold blooded murderer and he got away with it.