CLINT Eastwood is fond of a stark title: American Sniper, J Edgar, and now this, the true story of the titular Atlanta Olympics security guard wrongly accused of planting a bomb at a concert. Such naming suggests a lack of nuance, and so it is for this picture.
Eastwood introduces us to Jewell (played by Paul Walter Hauser) in 1986, ten years before the games came to Georgia. A stationery clerk at a law firm where Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) works, the amiable Jewell dreams of being a police officer. Don’t let the power go to your head, teases Bryant.
Cut to a decade later and Jewell, now a campus cop, has clearly not taken the guidance. Sacked from his job, it’s off to be a security guard at the Olympics.
Overweight, still living with his mother (Kathy Bates), feels as though he has never been given the recognition he deserves, hero worshipping the cops who laugh behind his back, Jewell either looks like an inadequate loser or a poster boy for a forgotten America, depending on your politics.
After raising the alarm on a bomb hidden under a bench Jewell is rightly hailed a hero.
But no sooner has he begun his stipulated 15 minutes of fame than word leaks from the investigation that he is under suspicion. Cue a media circus, Bryant being hired (“This kid’s getting railroaded!”), and Jewell and his mother being put through the mill.
It is a strong story, but in telling it the picture leaves a sour taste. The journalist who landed the scoop, Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde), is so openly portrayed as a villain it is a wonder the character was not given a moustache to twirl or a damsel to tie to rail tracks.
If you can put that to one side, and it is a big if, there are fine performances from all concerned, particularly Bates, who has been Oscar-nominated for best supporting actress.
After decades of postponements, disasters, and cast changes, director Terry Gilliam has finally brought The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (15)*** to the screen. What a quaint old romp it turns out to be.
Adam Driver (what a year he is having) plays an ad director trying to relive his glory days as a young filmmaker in Spain. As chaos reigns, fact begins to melt into fiction, reality into surrealism, and why does the local cobbler (Jonathan Pryce) think he is Don Quixote?
Gilliam fans will enjoy his trademark visual inventiveness, Pryce is a blast as the chivalrous knight, while Driver hams it up enjoyably as the brat who just cannot catch a break.
The Man Who... is fun for an hour, then messy, baffling and finally infuriating, but kudos to Gilliam for getting there eventually.
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