Who has enjoyed Richard Jewell, a Clint Eastwood movie streaming on HBO?
It is a great example of how to make a compelling movie even when the outcome is known in advance. (The story concerns the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and the security guard who found a suspicious backpack. Richard Jewell’s actions might have saved 100 lives. He quickly went from hero to main suspect as a team of 20+ FBI agents pursued the “look for the keys under the street light” method.)
For pilots and anyone else who has to make decisions with incomplete information, it is an interesting demonstration of our human ability to convince ourselves and to fit new information into our existing way of explaining an event. The FBI was hugely over-committed to their theory that Jewell, whose personality quirk of zealotry-in-law-enforcement was both the thing that motivated him to notice the backpack and also the thing that made him seem like a possible unhinged murderer.
Recommended.
I thought it was a terrific movie too. The lead actor and his mother were great.
I prefer classic Clint Eastwood movies co-starring an orangutan: “Any Which Way But Loose”, “Every Which Way But Loose”, “Any Which Way You Can”.
@Clyde O.
Black Widows get Asphalted. Classic! Low-budget, no CGI. No animals were harmed filming this movie. $40 went a lot farther back in 1980.
I haven’t seen it but others have told me that they enjoyed it. I remember when that incident took place, it was all over the news, and I recall thinking at the time that he was being railroaded, when in reality he saved a lot of people’s lives. I know Eastwood had a lot of trouble getting it made, it took a long time and he cashed in a lot of chips to get it done.
Enthusiastic agreement. The movie deftly made Jewell into the good guy despite being fat, unattractive, not that smart, and possessing bad-cop habits: bullying and habitually exceeding authority. In contrast, the FBI agent (Jon Hamm) is handsome, respected, intelligent, by-the-book. And he’s still the bad guy.
Also a fine performance by Sam Rockwell as Jewell’s lawyer.
Will look for it. Lived in Atlanta at the time – 1996 Olympics were not the city’s finest hour. The Olympic chairman (snooty Spaniard) could not hide his contempt for the rubes trying to replicate the Los Angeles games that finished in the black. He much preferred the Pyongyang/Beijing model.
The Jewell affair upstaged everything for a few days.
> The Olympic chairman (snooty Spaniard)
Juan Antonio Samaranch, IOC chairman 1980-2001. He would be disappointed in you calling him a Spaniard, as he considered himself Catalan. He biggest accomplishment as such was getting the 92 Summer Games for Barcelona.
Streaming on HBO?
I saw it in the theater in Month 2 BC (before corona). Theaters, remember those places?
Excellent movie.