Richard Jewell Cert: 15 / 131 mins / Dir. Clint Eastwood / Trailer "The world will know his name and the truth" proclaims the poster for Richard Jewell, with director Clint Eastwood bravely carving this cinematic monument a mere twenty four years after our eponymous hero's trial by media for his alleged role in the 1996 Atlanta bombing, fifteen years after his official exoneration, after a 1997 magazine article, a 2014 documentary and a 2019 book. Clint, you're the real unsung hero of this whole damned saga. Bravo.
Following a nuts-and-bolts lead up, we follow Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) through the events of that fateful evening and into its aftermath. The lowly security guard who discovers a suspect package at a concert is initially lauded for his vigilance, then turned upon by the media (represented here largely by Olivia Wilde) as they learn that the FBI (represented here largely by John Hamm) considers Jewell to be a leading suspect in the case, albeit with not enough evidence to actually charge him. Richard's efforts to clear his name with the assistance of lawyer Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) are confounded by his fitting the profile of a 'hero' bomber, and also his unerring ability to say the wrong thing to the wrong people at the wrong time. Can the truth rise above all this?
EMERGENCY Well yes it can, since much like Just Mercy, we know from the moment the emergency occurs that Jewell did not manufacture or plant the bomb. We're shown that explicitly. So the film loses the chance to be a double-crossing conspiracy thriller and turns into a lecture instead. Irrespective of an audience's knowledge of the case, there's a far better movie to be made from playing those scenes with ambiguity. Instead the press, media and FBI become the pantomime villains in a surprisingly linear take which paints nobody in a particularly good light, and much like 2016's Sully, we're even treated to dream-sequence re-enactments of the bombing with different outcomes. Nice of Clint to keep the action throughout the film, I suppose. Because since there was no sweeping courtroom triumph to the Jewell case and the FBI eventually just dropped the charges, the story peters out anyway. So it's probably for the best that this follows it petering-in to begin with.
Paul Walter Hauser makes for a decent lead, assuming his aim is to keep a respectable distance between the character and the audience's empathy. He plays 'borderline unlikeable' fairly well (with a conflict that's missing from the rest of the movie) yet still stays within the boundaries of writer Billy Ray's screenplay. The supporting cast are largely fine in roles that feel like quickly typed caricatures rather than real people. Coming out on top is Sam Rockwell, firmly in the runner-up position for screen time but he appears to be the only person on the set trying to be in a better film.
CHANGING To his credit, Eastwood makes a solid go of being undecided whether to make a film supporting a patriotic American undergoing trial by media for a crime he didn't commit, or whether to support the FBI for investigating a gun-obsessed, authority-obsessed, incel-prototype with potentially undiagnosed learning difficulties who a) looks guilty as hell and b) keeps saying dumb things that suggest he's guilty as hell. It's just a shame that this dichotomy doesn't make for an interesting story. There are no twists, no turns and certainly no surprises. Eastwood's directorial work is procedural - never moreso than here - as he describes events rather than painting a picture. Richard Jewell may have right on its side but the film made is without passion or flair.
Although contrary to the rulebook for This Sort Of Thing, it closes with three 'what happened next' caption-cards*1, but without accompanying photographs of the real-world players. Then again, Clint has already clumsily stitched in archive news footage of the actual Richard Jewell so there's probably no need. That's not the case all the way through, just at a point where it feels like the production was running out of time so didn't re-shoot that particular interview.
As is so often and so sadly the case with true story/injustice cinema, the story - and its participants - would be better served by someone making a documentary. Oh wait, they did.
But at least we know Richard Jewell's name and we know the truth, now.
Okay, we know some of the truth. Okay, we know his name.
Bravo.
It's like Sully but less mawkish, if only because Clint Eastwood prefers righteous indignance.
Not particularly.
Stream it, tops.
It is not.
This is entirely possible.
There isn't.
Level 2: Sam Rockwell is in this, and also in Jojo Rabbit alongside Taiki 'IG-11' Waititi.
(It's actually more like a 4/7, but I'm deducting a point for Eastwood's inclusion of the Macarena, complete with dancing. I mean I know this is a film about a terrorist atrocity, but that's fucking gratuitous.)
*1 One of which tells us that Sam Rockwell's lawyer Watson Bryant went on to marry his girlfriend and assistant Nadya Light. As if that had been some kind of tense undercurrent of the film, rather than one single shot of them kissing which has precisely zero effect on any of it because the screenwriter has taken the receptionist's character more for granted than the lawyer ever did...
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DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Now and again, a trailer comes along for a movie which looks like it should be fun, but seems nonetheless achingly self-aware, a little too knowing. There appear to be too many central characters, all dialled up to 11 and trying to upstage one another. A script which seems to comprise lines designed for quoting and repetition out of context. A jukebox soundtrack of retro tunes compiled by someone who thinks they're hip but only listens to Radio 2 (and uses words like 'hip').
And you remember the glut of substandard, straight-to-video fare in the mid-1990s which followed Tarantino's breakout, where form was valued over function and the guy who made the tea on the set of Pulp Fiction would be hired to make the tea on the set of whatever-new-heist-movie so that the poster could claim some causal link to greatness. And you decide you'll probably watch it anyway, but with guarded reservations.
Anyway, I needn't have worried (and nor need you). Bad Times At The El Royale is glorious.
MONUMENT In the final throes of the 1960s*1 on the state line between Nevada and California, sits a hotel. A kitsch monument to the faded glamour of America's golden age, the El Royale is still a going concern, albeit a waning one. The building has its secrets, as does the lone member of staff appointed to oversee its smooth running. And when four separate guests arrive on the same evening, they're each bringing baggage in every sense. As their paths intertwine, it becomes clear that some guests will be checking out sooner than others...
My word. From its opening scene, the audience knows this is going to be a meticulously paced stay. We begin with a solitary locked-off shot of the interior of a motel room. A nameless man enters alone, hides the film's macguffin and awaits his contact, all without a single word of dialogue. It feels like we're watching a stage play, an aesthetic that continues after the lone title-card, and characters arrive at the eponymous venue, checking in by systematically signing their names in the register.
HAYMARKET Rhythm and ritual reverberate heavily throughout Goddard's screenplay, from the the strained courtesy of receptionist Miles delivering the faded hotel's check-in welcome speech, to the methodical process of residents tearing through their rented rooms. The influence of that filmmaker mentioned above is felt particularly strongly, especially as it's the beats between the players' words which convey the meaning and betray their true intentions. But on a dark and stormy night with a guest-list full of secrets, there's as much Agatha Christie in here as there is Quentin Tarantino.
The narrative deepens in the second act where we begin to see key events replayed from the perspective of different characters and learn more of their backstories. There are no wry, second-guess-baiting reveals at The El Royale, but the story uncovers its developments slowly and purposefully, waiting for the right moment of theatrical effect.
And true to its stage ambience, this film is carried by standout performances from John Hamm, Lewis Pullman and above all Cynthia Erivo (and director Drew Goddard is certainly getting his money's worth from that actress's outstanding ability as a singer). Even Jeff Bridges forgoes his usual affable mumbling to bring a turn which is as touching as it is terrifying. Although it features a relatively small central cast, there's not a single dud (or even ordinary) performance in the whole film*2.
BIGG MARKET As Goddard works with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, the shots in El Royale are works of art in themselves, a counterbalance and symmetry running through the film like the state-line bisects the premises. Characters' hidden sides are revealed and then flipped back again, as we slowly learn that both of these facets make up who they really are. And we don't have to like who they may turn out to be, so long as we accept it. You are your inner-self and your outside-persona; no-one knows the face in your mirror like you do.
Is it style over substance? No. The style is the substance. Don't be fooled by the pronounced slickness and louche trappings. Bad Times At The El Royale is a surgically assembled, note-perfect masterpiece.
Also, I might be slightly in love with Dakota Johnson as she stalks around the secret corridors of a sleazy motel with bootcut jeans and a shotgun. My word...
Level 1: The voice of Captain Cormac out of The Old Republic is in this.
*1 Mate don't, the script doesn't say, I don't think. It's either the very late 60s or early 70s. Nixon is on TV (who was elected President in '68, although I'm not enough of a historian to say if the footage we see is from before or after that point) and the script specifically references Hush by Deep Purple (from the 1968 album Shades Of Deep Purple). So y'know, it could be a bit later, or there could just be a 1968 or '69 calendar on the hotel wall and I didn't notice first time round. [ BACK ]
*2 Even though Chris Hemsworth has arrived with his charm and without his shirt as instructed, he perhaps doesn't quite have the knife-edge gravitas required by his role as a pseudo hippy cult-leader. He's an engaging screen presence rightly enough, but Brad Pitt had this sort of thing down far more tightly in Kalifornia. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Tag Cert: 15 / 100 mins / Dir. Jeff Tomsic / Trailer
So, I see Hollywood's quest to recreate the lightning in a bottle which was The Hangover continues apace, with an ensemble comedy featuring the crap one out of Hangover, the crap one out of Avengers, the crap one out of Jurassic World, the crap one out of Baywatch and the crap one out of Baby Driver.
Three guesses what's happened.
Initially telling the story of a 30 year game of tag through the device of a reporter keen to write about the gang, the cast roster quickly expands to a number of players it can't realistically juggle. We're treated instead to a series of clockwork-timed set-pieces which have the air of something that was originally written for some movie anyway, but pulled off the shelf and dusted down for this.
Playing the living fuck out of its tenuous True Story™ card, the film has, admittedly, more laughs than it deserves. Although these come from choreographed slapstick rather than the half-baked script which feels like it's been written by a committee. A committee who decided that waterboarding and miscarriage were fine to use as punchlines*1. At least we now know that playing tag with this writing team would be so thuddingly predictable that it'd be a piece of piss to stretch the game out to 30 years...
We get a montage of camcorder footage before the mortifyingly self-indulgent end credits, showing the real life participants' tags over the years. This has more wit and sincerity than anything in the hour and a half before it.
Not enough ideas to actually justify its own existence, Tag is essentially 100 minutes of middle-aged men making dick jokes. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
Level 2: Jeremy Renner's in this, and he's been in those Avengers films with (among others) Sam 'Windu' Jackson
*1 No word in the film's final moments on whether the waterboarding, miscarriage or cancer sub-plots were based on factual events or the screenwriters' idea of upping the comic/dramatic ante.
The cancer thing in particular feels horribly ill-judged. Did this happen? If it did and the guy died, then it might be an idea to put up a card dedicating the film to his memory. If it did and he survived, it might be an idea to put up a card letting the audience know. If it didn't happen at all, it might be an idea to drop it from the fucking screenplay after what's come earlier with the fake-miscarriage debacle. Not going to lie, I didn't stay 'til the very end of the rolling-names, but then I didn't think I should have to. "By the way, Terry died" is hardly a post-credits stinger, is it? [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Well okay, this will be a review of two parts: the first is for people who haven't yet seen Baby Driver, the second for those who have. There are no real spoilers in the latter section, but without the context of having seen the film it'll only make limited sense. So, here goes...
Baby Driver is the new heist movie from British writer and director Edgar Wright. A smart, funny standalone action flick, it holds stylistic and thematic nods to his previous work, but no narrative ones. The story follows a young, automotively-gifted getaway driver who goes by the name of Baby (Ansel Elgort), and the interaction with his boss Doc (Kevin Spacey) as he tries to distance himself from an accomplished criminal career and an ever-changing crew of robbers, killers and outright psychopaths.
So as mentioned above the film is smart, the film is funny and there is plenty of action. While many are hailing this as an antidote to the Fast & Furious franchise, that's an unfair comparison as Baby Driver is a story about people, not machines. The car-chases here serve to drive the story forward, not the other way around. The film's not quite as smooth and zippy as its trailers might suggest, but that's because the promo-reels touch more on the style rather than the substance, and while the film never goes into melodrama mode, Wright carefully builds his central characters along the way, to the point where standoffs and shootouts feel genuinely perilous, rather than the through-the-motions setpieces we've become used to over the years.
The whole thing is also heavily soundtracked of course (more on that below), so if you get overwhelmed by the fast-paced scripting and editing, you can at least tap your along with your foot in the meanwhile.
The Summer-season is turning out to be a bit of a mixed bag. Baby Driver will be one of the highlights. It's great fun, see it soon…
So, why didn't I love this? Oh I liked it very much, but I'd be hard pushed to go further than that. Part of the problem could be the near-universal praise Baby Driver has had heaped upon it before the film is even on general release. I'm used to my brain wanting to automatically rail against that and find things wrong with a movie, but when it's a filmmaker I admire as much as Edgar Wright it almost becomes personal: 'I know what you're capable of because I've seen you at your best, so impress me - raise the bar'.
But the guy's bar is not only way too high to begin with, it's also beginning to recede into the distance. While I've enjoyed all his big-screen outings, I tend to rank Shaun of the Dead at the top and everything else pretty much on a (only slightly) downward-scale from there. I remember feeling slightly put-out that Wright had left Ant-Man mid-production, not least because I ended up loving that movie and wondered what there was about the final product that he'd disagreed with to the point where he'd quit altogether. So then I look at the tonal in-fighting there is throughout Baby Driver and think 'what was the utopian vision for this movie?', because I don't think the film I watched embodied that. There's a layer of genuine sentimentality across the whole screenplay which is more than welcome, but sits ill-at-ease with the snark and cynicism practiced by the characters. Neither comes across as genuinely as they should in an Edgar Wright movie, and the whole thing shudders as a result.
Speaking of which, the players. Ansel Elgort is refreshingly enjoyable in the central role*1, but still feels essentially miscast. For my money, Michael Cera would have been ideal for this, not least since he'd have had to leave his own comfort-zone as an actor. Lily James is also great to watch as always (although she gets comparatively little to do), but feels a little too clean for the role of a burned-out yet still optimistic waitress. Meanwhile, Kevin Spacey can't quite pass off the hard-edged cynicism he needs to as gang-boss and blasé murderer, Doc. But nor can he bring the warmth to the moments where he shows that he has some genuine fondness for his favourite and long-time driver.
On the plus-side (and with comparatively less screen-time), Jamie Foxx, John Hamm and Eiza González all fantastic as opportunistic career-criminals. Jon Bernthal has a minor role as Jon Bernthal™ but with a beard, which he pulls off with his accustomed ease.
But the biggest bugbear I have with Baby Driver is probably the relentless diegetic soundtrack. It's not that I disliked any of the tracks used*2, nor were songs were shoehorned in (I'm looking at you, DC), or that the idea was feeling strained (ditto, Marvel). More that it's over-used, to the point where a device which is to all intents and purposes a character in itself, loses relevance the closer the film gets to its third-act*3. And having punches, gunshots and explosions synced in time with the soundtrack works in a trailer but becomes distracting throughout an entire film. In fact many of the action sequences have the air of being tweaked in post-production to add more dynamic energy, but have instead come out feeling cluttered.
But for all my grumbling, I should add that it's not a case of 'this film should be better', just 'I should have enjoyed it more'. There were parts of the movie which had me grinning like a lunatic, but there were far more that I found disjointed, or like a work-in-progress from an earlier draft of the script*4.
All of this is me just groping for a way to justify saying that Baby Driver is very good, but not Wright's best work (future or past) by a long shot. But the pre-built hype and my predisposition to enjoy the director's work makes it feel like saying "it's good" isn't enough, somehow. Fully aware I'm in a minority here, although I take no joy from that.
Oh, absolutely - it's big and loud and full-on enough to justify the ticket, certainly.
I think it does, but also that it could have achieved so much more.
It's not.
I won't.
There isn't.
Level 2: Lily James is in this, and she was in that Wrath of the Titans along with Liam 'Qui-Gon' Neeson and Toby 'Additional Voices in The Old Republic' Kebbell.
*1 Regular readers might recall the time Elgort played a terminally-ill teenager who I spent a film's run-time wishing would hurry the fuck up about it all. Although don't get me wrong, I found his character in this film deeply annoying for the first twenty minutes or so. Thankfully two things then happen: 1) we get to know a bit more about him and 2) he tones it down a lot, anyway. [ BACK ]
*2 Serious note though, writer/directors: your taste in music is nowhere near as quirky, clever, cool or interesting as you think it is, I promise you. I've currently got Slayer, Lady Antebellum and Così fan tutte on my iPod, but I wouldn't dream of shoehorning them into a screenplay for geek-points. At the risk of beginning a rant, I'm getting a bit tired of sitting in the cinema and imagining the initial phone call to the producer's office: "Hey guys! I've got a great idea for a soundtrack! …er, I mean film! Yes a film, that's it! I mean both, obviously, whatever…". Going to see an action/hero movie is increasingly becoming like arriving at a party to find one guy guarding the stereo in the corner because he's brought all his own records. And he then insists on describing why he's chosen each one as he goes (this is a broad simile of course; I don't go to parties. And if I find myself at one, I try to stay as far away from All The People as possible). [ BACK ]
*3 And as a slight aside, I should mention that it's explained in the film that Baby suffers from Tinnitus due to a childhood accident and almost constantly plays music 'to drown it out'. While I'd put money on there being some level of personal experience in the writing of his character, members of the audience who also suffer from the hearing disorder will be fully aware that while music is indeed a welcome distraction, the pasttime doesn't replace the humming/ringing/screeching noise, more that the listener gets music plus Tinnitus. Which, over time, leads to more Tinnitus.
Just saying, because that's not addressed in the script... [ BACK ]
*4 And for those of you who've seen the film, is there a significance behind the lack of internet/smartphones? Baby's obsession with cassettes and analogue recording works in the context of the story, but Doc hands out flip-phones to his crew for the duration of each job, and at one point his son Samm is seen with a PSP. I'd thought at first that maybe the film was set in the mid 00s, but since we get a flashback showing a 3-4yr old Baby receiving his first (and 1st-generation) iPod, it's reasonable to assume that took place circa 2001 and the story-proper takes place around sixteen years later, ie now. So is Doc keeping his criminal network nicely undercover by having them use phones that your grandad would get laughed at for using in public? Also ref the iPod, Baby's got a range of different devices all loaded up with different playlists (a nice touch), yet I don't recall seeing him use a computer at all (they ain't going to sync themselves)? I'm hoping there's a PC (with like, thirty user profiles on it) in the background of a shot in his flat, and I just didn't notice it... [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
"The world will know his name and the truth" proclaims the poster for Richard Jewell, with director Clint Eastwood bravely carving this cinematic monument a mere twenty four years after our eponymous hero's trial by media for his alleged role in the 1996 Atlanta bombing, fifteen years after his official exoneration, after a 1997 magazine article, a 2014 documentary and a 2019 book. Clint, you're the real unsung hero of this whole damned saga. Bravo.
