All the Supporting Characters From 'Richard Jewell', Ranked
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE RICHARD JEWELL, BASED ON AN EVENT MOST OF YOU LIVED THROUGH AND REMEMBER. THAT SAID, I AM SURE NONE OF YOU WILL SEE THIS MOVIE ANYWAY, SO WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS?
Richard Jewell is the latest film from acclaimed director Clint Eastwood. It tells the story of a security guard falsely accused of masterminding the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park Bombing in Atlanta, Georgia. The FBI concocted a story that Jewell, who discovered the bomb and saved countless lives by evacuating the immediate area, staged the whole thing to make himself famous. Well, joke’s on them. They made a movie called Richard Jewell.
The story of Jewell is incredibly tragic. He’s hounded by journalists, maligned by late night talk show hosts, and generally painted as an overweight hillbilly buffoon. Jewell passed away in 2007 from heart failure caused by diabetes. Eastwood’s film doesn’t explore the long-term damage that Jewell suffered after the FBI cleared his name and the real bomber was found. It does fabricate a scene where a real-life journalist has sex with a source to get information. I guess they had to choose.
Anyway, there’s a lot of really great performances from talented actors doing silly voices to seem Southern. Also, there’s an extended sequence where extras perform the Macarena. Is it too late for “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)” by Los Del Rio to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song? Probably, since the song is not actual “original” and came out in 1996. It’s literally too late.
Oh well.
Kathy Bates, who plays Jewell’s mother, is getting most of the awards attention from this film, mostly thanks to the scene where she screams that the FBI is stealing her underwear. But there are plenty of other actors who deserve plaudits for their work in this motion picture. Various caricatures, sitcom-level stereotypes, and Nia Vardalos’s ex-husband. I will now rank them.
5) Nia Vardalos’s Ex-Husband
He basically has as many lines as Anna Paquin in The Irishman, but unlike her, you periodically forget he’s in the movie at all. He’s basically just there to stand next to Jon Hamm while Jon Hamm talks.
4) Jon Hamm
Great job, Jon Hamm! The former Don Draper plays an FBI agent so vain, cruel, and selfish that he will do anything to send Richard Jewell to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s sort of like the One-Armed Man from The Fugitive, but with two arms instead of one. Oh, and he’s the character that Olivia Wilde’s journalist sleeps with to get the information that Richard Jewell is a suspect. He’s essentially a less fun Don Draper, since he doesn’t smoke.
3) The Polygraph Examiner
As portrayed by Wayne Duvall, the Polygraph Examiner comes into the story at a pivotal moment when Watson Bryant, Jewell’s lawyer (played by Sam Rockwell), requests a polygraph test to prove his client’s innocence. I’ll never forget the way Mr. Duvall exclaimed, “he passed” or “this is the best polygraph test I have ever seen in my life. This man is the most honest human being alive.”
2) Nadya
Nadya is Watson Bryant’s assistant and eventually becomes his wife. They really did get married, but the movie still makes this feel like a ridiculously tacked on love story anyway. Like, all of the sudden they start kissing at the end. No one knows why, since they had no chemistry until that point and he’s a sexless nerd. She just kind of nagged him and looked sad through most of the movie. I’ve ranked her number two, since she her Russian accent is significantly better than WWE Superstar Lana.
1) Kathy Scruggs
I have to go with Olivia Wilde’s performance as the horny journalist as my number one, since she plays the only fictional character in the whole movie. That must have been tough on her.