Danielle Solzman
Richard Jewell, starring an award-worthy performance from Paul Walter Heuser, is now available for audiences to bring home on Blu-ray and DVD.
Though if you’re in the mood to stream the Clint Eastwood film from the comfort of your couch or bed, it’s also on Digital/VOD.
Richard Jewell takes us back to the immediate aftermath of the Centennial Park bombing during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Imagine saving the lives of hundreds of people celebrating during a concert. This is what one security guard was doing on a late summer night in July 1996. In spite of this, the FBI saw him as the lead suspect in their case. It would be roughly three months before coming to conclude that Richard Jewell wasn’t their guy. That he was innocent. If they did their job, they would have known this from the start.
The major players have their moments of knowing he isn’t the guy. Well, everyone but FBI Agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm). Richard’s attorney, Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) and Nadya Light (Nina Arianda) time their walk from the park to the phone booth. This is when they know he’s getting “railroaded” by the FBI. Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) has a similar epiphany later on. I don’t have to go through the specifics of what happens. Many of us remember watching all the press coverage in 1996. I remember waking up to the news of the bombing the next morning and being glued to the TV.
The film joins the hot trend in 2019 of being based on a magazine article. In this case, it’s “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell” by Marie Brenner. In reading the Vanity Fair article, one can see where Billy Ray has pulled from the article for scenes in the film. One of these scenes in particular is when Richard is instructed to read words from the 911 phone call. Brenner’s article is very in-depth and is certainly complementary reading to the film.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- The Making of Richard Jewell
- The Real Story of Richard Jewell
The difference between the Blu-ray and DVD is that the DVD only includes “The Real Story of Richard Jewell.”
DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood
SCREENWRITER: Billy Ray
CAST: Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde, Jon Hamm, Kathy Bates, and Paul Walter Hauser
