I'm not a real fan of slow paced long movies... unless they are made by Mr. Eastwood. He captures every tense moment, facial expression, or still scene, and manages to fill in more about the story he is telling. Casting was perfection! Paul Walter Hauser needs awards for his performance. Kathy Bates and Olivia Wilde were on point, as was Sam Rockwell and Canadian wannabe Jon Hamm - who is awesome in his TV commercials lol! Directing was perfect, cinematography great, score in line, and the writing was good. Very enjoyable film and I recommend it. It's a well deserved 9/10 from me

I have experience dealing with the Feds and found this movie incredibly compelling. So much about this movie hit home for me. Just a few examples, when the Feds came to talk to Jewell and tried to make him sign shady documents, bugging his home, the slick self-righteous agent who thinks he decides who is right and wrong, cleaning out his home supposedly looking for evidence, wasting time on easy, harmless suspects instead of finding the real criminals to boost their career. It's sad. All that time spent looking at Richard Jewell as a suspect while the real terrorist got away. They knew he was innocent, all they had to do was actually do some actual investigative, science-based investigative work instead of using confirmation bias.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Jewell didn't have access to a great lawyer or had the law enforcement background to spot the tricks the Feds were using? He would probably have been in prison until his death, which is nuts. At no point did anyone use common sense and point out that there was absolutely no evidence this guy was involved. They were looking for an easy mark.

It just shows that reform is needed drastically. I've always thought that many in American law enforcement are not educated, which leads to this sort of thing happening too often. Then you have the for-profit prison system which encourages all the corruption in the justice system to begin with.

If I had kids, I'd definitely show them this movie and point out all the things Jewell did wrong and what to do in a situation like this. It should be mandatory to show in Civics classes, TBH.

It's the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Security guard Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) spots a suspicious backpack. It explodes and he becomes a hero. FBI agent Tom Shaw (Jon Hamm) suspects that Richard is the lone bomber looking for the adoration of the people. Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde) is the aggressive reporter who starts a media firestorm which engulfs Richard and his mother Bobi (Kathy Bates). Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) takes on the challenge of being his lawyer.

Wow! I did not expect to dislike Richard to start the movie. I expected a quiet momma's boy. My issue with him is that the man has no boundaries. If I was Watson, I would tell Richard to get his chubby little fingers out of my drawers. He could have pull out the Snickers bar from his pocket to give to Watson. Instead, he does it like a serial killer after going through someone's belongings. That may be a true story but it does not make it less creepy. It takes awhile after that to acclimatize to Richard and his peculiarities. He does grow on me over time especially after he gets angry. He stops being so infuriating. As for Scruggs, Clint Eastwood makes the mistake of turning her into a cartoon character. It would be vastly superior to have her as just another ambitious reporter which would be more indicting to modern media. She's like Wile E. Coyote or something. She's unreal. It's an insight into Eastwood's mentality more than anything. Overall, I grew to like this movie but it has a couple of speed bumps along the way.