Richard Jewell is the true-life story about an unlikely hero who saved hundreds, possibly thousands of lives, from a bomb that detonated in at Centennial Olympic Park, during the 1997 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The media immediately turned Richard Jewell into a folk hero, but that didn’t last very long. After the FBI leaked to newspapers that their local hero was the target of their investigation, the media turned on Jewel.
The media maliciously tore into the man they previously celebrated, destroying his character, and harassing his family. The FBI was equally as guilty, using a flawed “lone bomber” profile, and entrapment techniques, to frame Richard Jewell as the terrorist.
In the end, Richard Jewell was cleared. The FBI and Media never did apologize, and the FBI had no further suspects. The real bomber was Eric Rudolph, who had also bombed an abortion clinic and a lesbian nightclub.
Jewell eventually sued a handful of media outlets of libel to clear his name. Most of the settlements went to his lawyer fees and taxes.
This movie is great for the entire family. It’s not too bloody and it’s a true story. How much of it is canon to reality? Well, that – I’m not too sure.
Mostly everything about this movie was great and I highly recommend it.
RICHARD JEWELL: Type Nine “Peacekeeper” with One “Reformer” wing.
In my opinion, the term “Peacekeeper” can be the politically correct name for “coward,” because at the core, that’s essentially what Type Nines are. In the face of danger, their initial reaction is to cower, retreat, and never to fight back. They fear confontation and quite often, they get steamrolled by more powerful egos, often going with the flow, even though know better.
Unhealthy Type Nines don’t take promotions and get advantage of, and that’s exactly what Richard Jewell was for most of the movie. He was the perfect punching bag for rowdy college kids, co-workers, employers; not to mention, the FBI and media.
An innaccurate criminal profile was made of Jewell by the FBI, which painted him unfairly as the likely culprit. Peacekeepers are the last type of personality to use a bomb to make a point. It is possible, but highly unlikely. The real bomber, Eric Rudolph, ended up being an Unhealhty Type Five Intellect who was trapped a world of fiction that he found so threatening, he had to destroy what he feared.
Richard Jewell’s character grew when he embaced his 8 “Challenger” Wing and finally stood up for himself. Challengers are your typical Alpha-Male type personalities.
WATSON BRYANT: Type One “Reformer”
Reformers are the natural referees, the whistleblowers, who live by rules on top of more rules. They are obsessed with doing what’s right (in their mind), and often spend their life correcting others, if not rescuing them.
Watson was the only employee who treated Richard Jewell like a person because he believed it was the right thing to do. He ended helping Jewell not because he was his friend, but because he believed he was innocent.
KATHY SCRUGGS: Type Three “Achiever”
There is a very big controversy on whether or not Clint Eastwood portrayed Kathy Scruggs accurately. In the movie, she sleeps with an FBI informant to reward him for leaking information to her. I’m not sure who anyone could know that, so I’m pretty sure that’s a little Hollywood fiction here. To Eastwood’s defense, she was known to be pretty wild and to have very intimate relationships with her informants.
Accolades meant a lot to Scruggs, even if it meant ruining an innocent man’s reputation. Her attitude to win at all costs eventually cost her job, her integrity, and in reality – her life, as she most likely died of an overdose.
TOM SHAW: Type Eight “Challenger”
Eights are natural-born leaders who use force and intimidation to get what they want. Accolades don’t mean as much to them as a Type Three, unless that accolade comes with power. While winning may sound nice, it’s always more about losing that bothers them, and how it makes them feel less powerful.
Rules and guidelines are only a guideline and can definitely be broken.
Tom Shaw is not a real person but represents the FBI agents who unfairly investigated Jewell, breaking all the rules to get what they want. They were found guilty of trying to entrap Richard Jewell.
DIRECTING WAS GREAT BUT….
In all honesty, I am not sure why filmmakers, even great ones such as Clint Eastwood, take any creative license in a movie that is supposed to represent itself as a documentary. What is the official word? Docudrama? Some crap like that. Tom Shaw doesn’t exist in real life, and Eastwood chose to make Kathy Scruggs sleep with him. This scene puts both Scruggs and the FBI in a pretty negative light and is most likely b.s. Now, in my opinion, if you’re going to put something like that in a movie, it better be real. If it’s not real, then you’ll just give critics more ammo to discredit the movie.
I have no doubt that the mainstream media lied and destroyed Richard Jewell’s character to increase their ratings, but I’m pretty sure that most journalists don’t sleep with their informants. Well, I hope that’s not the case.
Eastwood chose to sleaze it up, so we don’t actually how Kathy Scruggs got her info, and that’s actually a big part of Richard Jewell’s story, because she lead the charge to paint him as the bomber.
GRADE: B
Steve Young
