Security guard Jewell, starring non-star Paul Walter Hauser as the portly and cherubic momma’s boy, had prevented potential dozens of deaths from a pipe bomb going off in their direction in Atlanta at the 1996 Olympics. Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell is under heavy enough scrutiny for its agenda politics of slamming left wing media to such a degree it would have been easier had I not liked it so I could just dismiss it. Finding a way to cast concerns aside, I found I was able to remove any POV of right wing / left wing tribalism inherent and simply saw what happened in it as a case of human folly.
Olivia Wilde is a ruthless vulture-like Atlantic Journal Constitution newspaper reporter based on real-life person Kathy Scruggs (but with many liberties taken? I don’t know, but I assume so) who nuzzles up to Jon Hamm as an FBI man to get a lead and spreads a wildfire of defamation, thus, Jewell goes from overnight hero to sudden suspect. A particular pride of authority demonstrated by Hamm’s men in the FBI kept them from doing their job appropriately, and the script persuades in just how blameworthy they were in their lazy and convenient willingness to turn Jewell into a patsy.
The bright spot of the movie is not being discussed enough. As the quid pro quo lawyer Watson Bryant who goes to bat for Jewell, particularly present at the right time to tell the FBI to back off to their faces, Sam Rockwell has the most lived-in performance of his career and I don’t say that lightly; he’s not a hifalutin lawyer who does any jacked-up shouting, he remains calm and collected as he remarks conscientious but practical arguments to the FBI agents’ faces, he speaks to the media in scorn of their mishandling of the Jewell story while remaining levelheaded. In 2019, the supporting actor performances I was blown away by were Brad Pitt in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and Al Pacino in “The Irishman,” but Rockwell with sound and brilliant but homespun way of speaking would be my third favorite, despite being as under-regarded as he’s been in reviews so far.
At the forefront, it would have never been enough for Jewell and his mother Bobi (Kathy Bates, who effectively does the Niagara Falls of Crying Acting in this movie) to walk down their apartment steps and explain to media cameras that they’re good people living quiet lives. Reporters less extreme yet still similar to Kathy Scruggs would have battered them with rapid-fire questions without allowing cogent answers to clear things up, with the news bias to spin any statement he would make to paint him guilty. Jewell needed a guy like Sam Rockwell to be the voice of reason; the smart friend that uses wit and recount of legal rights to swing the public court of opinion. I could question Eastwood’s motives with aggrandizement, but regardless, I am glad I sat with this movie.
129 Minutes. Rated R.
DOCUDRAMA / LEVEL HEADED VIEWERS / FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Film Cousins: “Paradise Lost: Child Murders at Robin Hood Hill” (1996); “True Crime” (1999); “Veronica Guerin” (2003); “When They See Us” (2019).
Exploitation / Melodrama <em>Cop</em> is a perfect-fit James Woods vehicle that allows him to play a cynical, self-serving detective. He takes a call where he discovers a dead woman hung upside-down, and volunteers to lead the case. She was a prostitute, and the case will entail other prostitutes for Woods to talk to (and Woods <em>loves</em> talking to as many women as possible). The plotting is slack, almost deliberately. James B. Harris, the producer of three earlier Kubrick films and a director here, is interested in making this a character study—a pugnacious lawman who likes his own aggression, self-importance, self-righteousness. In due time, Woods ties the perpetrator to other unsolved crimes, in addition, he does a takedown on other police officers. Charles Durning, as his senior detective partner, tells Woods on a number of occasions to cool down. It’s one of those types of movies. What the movie cannot find is complete plot coherency.
Arnold Schwarzenegger as an undercover kindergarten teacher in a movie with a violent opening and a violent ending. Despite the mish-mash of tone and irresponsibility of making it palatable for younger children, it is shamelessly entertaining anyway. Mostly amusing for seeing the big Austrian blow his fuse in class, seeing the tykes say some silly or crude things. Subsequent cutesy montage of the kids being whipped into shape.
I mean, yeah, Schwarzenegger looks like a dirty and mad cop in the opening. One shave and a wardrobe fitting later, he’s a teacher. Repressed school moms seem to have a mad crush on Schwarzenegger, as John Kimble, so that’s rib-tickling for a few moments. But specifically he’s got the cutes for Penelope Ann Miller, as another elementary school teacher, who is so classy and refined and sweet and earnest – she’s so good at this kind of role you believe she could fall for a man two and a half times her size.
Kimble gets to the bottom of which kid in class has a crazy criminal dad, that being Cullen Crisp (Richard Tyson, who should have gotten more sociopathic tough guy work after this one). There’s a crazy grandmother, Eleanor Crisp (Carroll Baker), whom the filmmakers first approached Audrey Hepburn for the ruthless role – that would have been a strange something had that casting happened. Pamela Reed is also funny as a seasoned cop partner who is always hungry for good food.
<em>Kindergarten Cop</em> is well-directed by Ivan Reitman in the respects of hitting all its marks and moving swiftly from start to finish. Yet I got into a late slumber with it until it picks up again at the end. I guess it put a smile on my face by seeing Schwarzenegger go from Terminator Cop to Kindly Teacher (I still think the movie should have been a little more, uh, bloodless), and the fact that he’s got a love interest in Miller whom I wish was my real-life love interest. Love those Willamette Valley, Oregon locations, too.
It is funny how there was a time when director Abel Ferrara was making an attempt to appease studios to show he could be a mainstream moviemaker. In his blood, however, is a streak of sleaze, grit, decadence. With this particular work, all that’s going for it is whenever Ferrara has the chance to be visually subversive. The story of <em>China Girl</em> has the mechanics of a West Side Story variation, but it’s all very labored. There is no good writing in it, when at least his previous flick “Fear City” (1984) had some scenes of good writing. The actors are far from first-rate. The starcrossed lovers, Richard Panebianco and Sari Chang, at least appear attractive as long as they’re not doing a speaking scene.
Dirty but delicious exploitation—a picture that has the sleaziest of milieus around a strip club, however, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Melanie Griffith look sexier. She’s working the stage like a jungle cat. And it helps that director Abel Ferrara, even this early in his career, knows how to cut around and show us every erotic shape of Griffith’s figure. Outside the club, Griffith has a lesbian girlfriend and an ex-boyfriend (Tom Berenger) who serves as a private eye.
<em>Fear City</em> is a slasher film about how one psycho with martial arts talent terrorizes but not always kills his stripper prey. He humiliates them, his M.O.
Billy Dee Williams is in contrast to everybody else in this picture, as a class act detective who hates the sleaze of the city.
For awhile, this early Ferrara B-picture is watchable. Up until I realized that the movie has a less than adequate narrative motor. The melodrama between Berenger and Griffith is rough and tumble, it’s good. But the movie ties in too many other half-baked elements (gangsters, club owners, one-note victims, lousy night photography on the streets), and I started to tune out. Not overall good, but I can’t help but say I’m glad I had it on this once. In case you must know, Berenger <em>takes out the trash</em> at the end.
