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Money Talks, Bull-Schiff Walks: Viewing ‘Richard Jewell’
For the price of a movie ticket, you can stand up for truth, justice, and the American way! After Horowitz, we all knew how extensive the corruption and abuse of power was in the FBI, DOJ, and our national media. Two days later, Clint Eastwood released a movie exactly on topic, dramatically documenting earlier collusion between the same malevolent cast of characters. The response from Trump voters and supporters was telling.
The Democrats’ media wing told us that we should not support this movie. Now, with the Richard Jewell opening weekend box office counted, we know we let them win, again, just like we let them win 2018. Bank on the anti-Deplorable, anti-Trump selective hit job movie Bombshell to get plenty of support, reinforcing the left’s narrative. Trump voters can’t be bothered, and conservative media figures apparently are missing the significance, in the midst of the daily deluge of stories. So, Trump 2020 will not be Boris Johnson 2019. Change my mind this week: money talks, bull-Schiff walks.
Richard Jewell matters right now because it gives the lie to everyone who professes unwavering belief in the integrity of the FBI, minus a few sacrificial snakes in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. This especially matters with the Senate Republican leadership. This movie calls us back to the old wisdom that power corrupts all sorts of men and women in all places and times. We are reminded that ambition can lead us into moral peril, as we rationalize action and inaction, knowing better. Eastwood reminds us of all this without cartoon characters or sentimental plot lines, and without coming to a nihilistic or fatalistic conclusion. We need this message front and center before Lindsey Graham gets his hands on the Senate trial proceedings.
Richard Jewell is not Christian-film schlock, not even a Hallmark movie. This is Oscar nomination-worthy in its depth and complex portrayal of almost every character. Clint Eastwood proves that age has not dulled his storytelling and film-making powers. Kathy Bates may rip your heart out and have you wanting to climb through the screen after the FBI villains. Paul Walter Hauser gives us a self-destructively flawed protagonist, gifted in observation of things, except as they contradict his passionate belief in law enforcement as an unalloyed force for good. When the FBI all but throws the one-page “exoneration” letter at him sitting in a working-class diner with his lawyer, Watson Bryant, Richard Jewell takes two bites of his donut and breaks down. Olivia Wilde gives us the cautionary tale of raw ambition at the beginning, then Eastwood puts her in the back of the news conference, weeping as she sees the pain she helped inflict on Richard Jewell’s mother.
The only ones not shown seeking some redemption or showing any remorse are the FBI agents, with the agent in charge in full career-preservation mode from before the bombing through when he drops the one-paragraph semi-retraction on Jewell and his lawyer, turning his back as he utters the lie that he still believes Richard Jewell did it. This accords with a scene early in the movie when we see Watson Bryant and Richard interact years before the bombing. The lawyer warns Richard, who is full of pride at being offered a job leading to police employment, that people can become abusive when they get a little power. Clint Eastwood told that morality tale many years ago with sledgehammer subtlety in Absolute Power.
The R-rating is deceptive. Richard Jewell is far less graphic than the Marvel series, having only the bombing scene with limited blood and no gore. There was no sex scene, not even a hint of nudity, and far less cussing than most Hollywood fare. You’d almost think this was a political rating. I think the movie is worth viewing by high-school children, who would profit from its lessons.
The coalition that showed up in 2016 is enjoying the benefits produced by President Trump, unaided and subverted by Conservatism, Inc., which is invested in real results for large defense contractors and the big boys of the Chamber of Commerce but never really for actual results for social conservatives, let alone the forgotten Americans who the bipartisan establishment told to just learn to code. The 2016 Electoral College-winning coalition watched their standard-bearer, and so their own political franchise, under relentless assault since the summer of 2016. These voters have taken the material benefits and done little to actually fight back, where true believers and opportunists on the left have been relentless.
How relentless? Just look at how they have hammered a movie that sings the old liberal, indeed the old leftist, tune: a corrupt federal government, through the agency of the FBI, violates an innocent, indeed a righteous man’s rights in the false name of national security and law and order. We used to all be able to get behind that. Now, the left is all on board with abusing the heck out of the Constitution, so long as it serves their higher purposes.
Watching Richard Jewell at the local multiplex, I counted only four other ticket holders at the early evening show this Sunday. I checked other new releases’ seating charts on the movie house’s app and found more, too many more, tickets sold for the same time of evening. We are doing it to ourselves; we are creating the facts with which the left can smash us in the face again and again.
The standard excuse offered is “too busy” or “don’t go to movies because.” Applesauce. Conservatives and the Trump coalition are all out filling sports bars, buying coffee, and attending events we like. “I’ll wait for it to come out on Amazon/Netflix/DVD.” That does nothing to help President Trump win. You could do far more good buying a couple tickets this week, whether you use them or not, than spending the same amount on a t-shirt in the Donald J. Trump merchandise online store, or buying the latest hot conservative book. A big box-office, especially if we react to the weak commercial opening weekend with grassroots promotion driving up attendance, is the signal studios cannot ignore, or at least the signal that skeptical investors being encouraged to get in the game will need. Andrew Klavan has been pounding away on this point for years.
The first weekend is behind us, nothing left but the gloating from the left. So, what are you going to do about it? If you are retired or have some free time, what about grabbing some friends, maybe your coffee klatch, and rolling out for a matinee this week. Grab a late lunch or drinks afterwards to talk it over and share with others. College students, done with finals about now, can grab conservative, libertarian, and true liberal friends for a movie and beers. Maybe you could pin down your favorite radio host on their failure to rally the troops, when they are busy pushing ad campaigns and showing their influence with their guest list. Or be more subtle and encouraging, flattering them with the chance to show their real influence for good with a ticket sale surge this week and a much larger second weekend.
The White House team should already be reaching out to get a screening before Christmas, especially inviting Bobi Jewell, Richard Jewell’s mother, to the White House to praise her and her son and to pour righteous wrath on the FBI as a whole for its whitewash of every abuse it ever committed, from its wiretapping of MLK, through its lethal anti-religious bigotry at Waco, to leaving innocent men rotting in jail to cover for a mob informant, to the FBI and DOJ election meddling with the false prosecution of Alaskan Republican Senator Ted Stevens, to using Richard Jewell as cover for their abject failure to first prevent and then successfully investigate the bombing of the Atlanta Olympic Games.
Our nation owes this to Bobi Jewell and her departed son’s memory, and President Trump is the one president in the modern era to have the moral clarity and courage to backhand the entire FBI and DOJ bureaucracy. Really, he should do so with Attorney General Barr making the apology to Bobi and Richard Jewell.
Published in Entertainment
These kinds of movies aren’t opening weekend box office types. This is the kind that builds due to word of mouth, like American Sniper, or La La Land. It’s the kind you tell all your friends about when they get bored with Star Wars and want something meatier.
And. This is a movie they will look to dump off screens as fast as possible. There will be no building up for a movie so clearly identified as wrong-think, if we give the corporations owning the screens the excuse of weak box office numbers after this next weekend. Midway only got a month, and it was not political. It is already down to one screen and two early matinee showings after opening 1 November.
Movie theater owners are the least woke people in show business. They had no problems keeping The Passion of the Christ on the screen, because it was making money. Midway didn’t make money. You’re right that conservatives are not in the sensible habit of boosting pictures that actually do reflect their values, and that’s on us–not the Left, not the PC crowd. Conservatives will bear any burden, provided it’s effortless, and pay any price for cultural virtue, provided that price is a penny or less. BTW, credit where credit is due, National Review, which many Ricochet readers treat as if it was the Huffington Post, gave strong reviews to Richard Jewell. Kyle Smith and Armond White do excellent jobs.
Like you, I hope a second wave of attention comes to the rescue just in time, but that’s pretty rare. I think the real problem may simply be that it’s a serious, well acted awards season movie that came out too late in the awards season. It’s not a “Christmas movie”. Nobody pushes away the pumpkin pie and coffee and says, “Let’s get the kids in the car and go see Richard Jewell“.
All true. And. Fortuitously, this dropped squarely in the middle of substantiated talk of FBI and media malfeasance, so it ought to be cuing a response from the right as it clearly has from the left, although it has received highly favorable response on both the tomato and popcorn scale at Rotten Tomatoes.
I also suspect we are in a different time from that of Passion.
To be sure, the Left has been unable to drag its people to see losers like The Kitchen, Booksmart, and Charlie’s Angels (“Sworn to Secrecy. Bound by Sisterhood”) It’s not just us, but it’s more painful for us because we don’t get many turns at bat.
The Left has its crybabies. When A Wrinkle in Time flopped, big time, taking about $100 million down the drain with it, Ava DuVernay, the humiliated director, lashed out at her studio, its publicity and its advertising division as racist, unable to sell black product, staffed by whites unwilling to take risks to put over black subjects. Ten days earlier, the same studio, same publicists, and ad agency released Black Panther, which became the number one film in the world, banking $1.3 billion dollars.
The cartoons had a musical sound effect for this, a mocking muted trumpet sound–“Wock wahhh”.
Hollywood will back conservative winners, but they have to actually win. Warner Brothers gives Eastwood financing for just about anything he wants to make. CBS’s metoo-ed boss Les Moonves backed CSI: NY and Gary Sinise all the way, then made sure to give the timeslot to Selleck’s Blue Bloods when CSI: NY faded. The industry is told to hate Moonves for stubbornly featuring shows with strong male leads, which we are assured will lead to demographic doom in ten or twenty years. In the meantime they made CBS the most popular broadcast network.
Yes. And. Richard Jewell is no 15:17 to Paris. You get real characters well developed by A-list actors. Everyone is so flawed as to be quite real, with the possible exception to “flawed” being a woman who is obviously from behind the former Iron Curtain. As the reception/paralegal/lover of the lawyer, she offers the quotable line early on:
“When the government says he is guilty, then you know he is innocent.”
The R rating also cuts against the pile the kids in the car thing. Except that it is far less graphic than the Marvel series, has only the bombing scene with limited blood and no gore. There was not one sex scene, not even a hint of nudity, and far less cussing than most Hollywood fare. You’d almost think this was a political rating.
I’m planning to see this. However let me add (subtract?) that the subject matter is actually too close to today’s front page news and those of us following the swamp gas don’t need to see more examples on the big screen. There’s probably a term for this phenomenon where the metaphor is simply too close to something people are experiencing to be attractive. Six months after Hurricane Katrina is not a time to expect Louisiana residents to flock to a blockbuster disaster film involving floods.
I’m a HUGE Eastwood fan. Two of his films are in my top 7 all-time. Unforgiven #2 and Gran Torino #7. I was very disappointed in his last film, Mule, a pedestrian story that left me with nothing.
I don’t like mixing politics and art, and there’s no way I want to be hectored into supporting some project on that basis.
I also have absolutely no care about what the left says about anything. Let them live ( and die!) living in their bubble-world.
I went back and forth on the hectoring versus wheedling. Not entirely sure which way would be best at the moment.
And. The leftist cultural bubble contains us all now, as I suspect any HR manual reveals. Few feel free to use their own name and image here. A lack of countervailing messages outside our own subculture bubble means we eventually lose. Bigly. Not that this is the Battle of Thermopylae, but it is a rare film at an important, possibly critical moment.
One thing I notice is that the theaters themselves are torpedoing this film. There were very few show times and those times were outside the normal optimum range and in the smaller / lesser showing rooms.
Going to the movies has become something of a big deal for me. It involves my wife and generally another couple. So finding a film that four people will like narrows the choices. Richard Jewell isn’t a “date” movie. But – I suspect it will do very well once it hits Netflix or Amazon – because then guys like me can watch it at home without the approval process of other people.
@franco – What did you think of A Perfect World?
I agree with just about all of this.
I sympathize with the desire to see a film like this become a hit, for everyone to soak in the points it makes about power and corruption. Ultimately, if it is well done, I think that will happen.
It won’t immediately change minds but, like all good art that has some truth in it, it will just become part of the background context that people will subconsciously refer to as they observe the world.
If the movie is overtly touted as a political movie, especially one that people should go to in order to support Trump, it will severely hamper its impact.
If I recall correctly, a lot of the anti-Iraq war movies flopped for the same reason – they were just too obviously political. Now, I don’t remember their names. But I do remember ones like the Hurt Locker, and American sniper, which were not so overtly political, but just good art.
Not that that decision, writ large, will have any positive effect at all, in shaping the political conversation now, in carrying the message through the awards season, overlapping with primary season, or in causing more serious budget films with big stars to tell conservative stories, shaping our culture.
I am properly chastised.
I am hoping you are correct.
They were political in a hate America and American soldiers, except for damaged self loathing soldiers, sense. They were hard left.
This movie was not shot as a partisan tract. The left is now making a political issue of it, saying it is wrong think. The FBI and the Democrats’ media wing are to be trusted. Orange man bad.
Haven’t seen it ( maybe I’m not that huge of a fan..lol) but I will rent it. But another gem ( not a great movie but a gem) is Bronco Billy.
I’ve thought that myself many times. I agree completely.
Why argue with success?
I’ve thought the same thing about Masterpiece Theater. Why don’t they analyze what succeeded in Downton Abbey, which ran from 2010 to 2015 and is still showing up on PBS’s most-watched list, and produce more winning series like it?
I’ll buy tickets, but not attend. I lack time, and I need my movies to be escapist, not realist.
But was Midway any good? I have a guy friend who wants us to go see it, but the trailer gave me the impression of having too much GCI for a World War II movie. My guess is that The Battle of Midway probably didn’t look like the Battle of Endor. But that’s not why we haven’t seen it; we’ve got a bunch of kids and not enough time. But for others, if a movie is good they spread the word.
Yes, it is a good movie.
We saw “Richard Jewell” on Saturday in Oro Valley AZ in the 4:25 showing. The theater was full. I thought it was well done. The two best actor roles were Scruggs the reporter/villainess and the lawyer for Jewell. I have never seen either of them before. The guy who played the lawyer was in “Vice,” which I would have no interest in seeing. The lead guy, Jewell, is a bit painful to watch at first but he becomes more sympathetic toward the end.
I did not see “Mule” or “Million Dollar Baby” both downers from what I saw. We also saw “Unplanned” which was also well done. I go to movies about four times a year. The theater we go to also shows classics. There was a poster for “Breakfast at Tiffanys” but no date.
We saw “They Shall Not Grow Old” twice.
I hear the movie is the dumbed down version of Pearl Harbor.
However it didnt bomb. It doubled its money with global box office.
One group of reviewers said it was a great ‘dad movie’.
Other than shared snack bar facilities, the advantage of modern multiplexes is flexibility: if a much-ballyhooed new film flops, or if an unheralded one becomes a hit, you merely switch auditoriums. Hollywood might put unpopular films into production, and does, but theater owners are entirely separate businesses from Hollywood, and have been since a court decision in 1948. They are not sentimental in the least. Generally, this is good; it means PC stinkers get the treatment they deserve. Occasionally, though, it’s tough on deserving late bloomers that don’t get to sit around for weeks waiting for an audience that doesn’t show up.
Movie theater prime time is 7 to 11 pm. Starting earlier or ending much later makes a film less popular. When movies were mostly 90-100 minutes long, it was easy for theaters to get two full evening shows. It’s tougher when they’re longer than two hours, as more and more of them are.
A few phenomenal hits can get away with one show a night and still make money, like Titanic.
I took my wife to see it on Saturday. The theater was about two thirds full. We both enjoyed it. She would describe herself as liberal. She kept saying that she was going to cry because of what was happening to the titular character. We didn’t discuss politics afterwards however, I saw her online googling the actual story. I am unsure if she made the connection between the events in the movie and what is happening with Federal law enforcement and the media right now.
I might give them $3 when it is available to rent. Might. But doubtful. The “go see this movie and support this cause” thing is lost on me. You can blame the destruction of Western Civilization on me if you like.
To be fair, I saw the movie’s cinema preview as well the various TV ads, and the movie looked about as much fun to watch as having teeth pulled.
Maybe it’s a left-right thing, but I go to the movies to be entertained more than informed, and manipulative melodrama, hectoring, and unsubtly smashing me over the head with your message are all anathema to the entertainment experience.
Every time I hear someone talk about how awful somebody is as portrayed by an actor in a film, I feel the need to remind them, “remember, you’re watching a movie.”
Thanks for the heads up, Clifford.
This movie has been advertised all around LA and Hollywood with many billboards. I happen to somewhat know some of the producers who are Lefties but were really excited about this movie before the Media turned up it’s nose. The producers thought it was Oscar Worthy. I running out and seeing it this week before it goes away.
I don’t like message movie and Richard Jewels was not one. It was a story about an event done in an entertaining manor.
It reminded me of the old war movies like the longest day.
Like a giant house with strippers?