MOVIE: Jewel in the cinematic crown

Dublin People 24 Jan 2020
MOVIE: Jewel in the cinematic crown

YOU don’t want to get on the wrong side of the FBI. 

One man who found himself in this unenviable position was security guard turned hero, turned suspect, Richard Jewell. 

Famous for discovering a bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Jewell cleared the area and saved lives, but then found himself chief suspect in the subsequent investigation. 

Director Clint Eastwood tells the compelling true life story with a cast that includes Oscar nominated (for this role) Kathy Bates, Sam Rockwell and Olivia Wilde. 

Paul Walter Hauser gives a terrific performance as the lead in a film that will have you rooting for the underdog and is the best on offer this week. 

The elderly Eastwood clearly still has something to say, and we award his latest offering a review score of four sparkly stars.

Two other films that shine less brightly are the poorly scripted ‘Queen and Slim’, and the unspectacular horror, ‘The Turning’. 

The former is the latest in a long line of movies to tackle race relations in America, and deals with two black people (Slim and Queen) on a tinder date who are pulled over by an aggressive white policeman. 

When events get out of hand, and Slim accidentally kills the officer, the two singletons decide that their only choice is to go on the run. The movie is stylishly directed by Melina Matsoukas, and well acted by Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith, but suffers from a script full of plot holes and characters who make decisions that are simply not believable. 

‘The Turning’ is a supernatural thriller based on the Henry James book, ‘The Turn of the Screw’, about an unfortunate nanny who takes charge of two odd children at a Maine stately home. 

The oddness is added to by the casting of Finn Wolfhard from ‘Stranger Things’, with Mackenzie Davis taking on the lead role of cursed childminder, Kate. 

From the same writers as ‘The Conjuring’, this frightfest has just enough scares to satisfy horror fans, and interestingly was filmed in Ireland, but unfortunately it signs off with an ending that feels both confusing and unsatisfying. 

Paul O’Rourke 

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