It’s not always easy to know how an actor really feels about a movie they’ve made. When a film gets released, the stars do press to talk up the movie. Even long after judgments have been passed by others, the actors tend to defend their work for obvious reasons. And yet, Paul Walter Hauser is more than willing to tell the world that he thinks one of his movies is, well, actually, it’s just fine.
Like so many people, Paul Walter Hauser has a Letterboxd account where he rates and reviews the various movies he’s seen. Somebody on Twitter noticed that he had only given his movie Richard Jewell, the actor’s breakout role about the man accused of the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics, a 3.5 out of 5. One would likely expect him to give his own movies glowing scores. However, the actor himself saw the post and responded, saying that his review is honest and that while he thinks the movie is good, it’s not on the same level as truly great cinema:
If I think The Shawshank Redemption and Schindler's List are 5/5, and Richard Jewell is not a perfect movie/bonafide classic, what's wrong with giving an honest rating? It's a good film that is definitely worth watching. A 3.5 out of 5 is not a slight. It's reality.
It’s difficult to argue with Hauser’s assessment here. First off, a 3.5 out of 5 is a perfectly respectable score for a movie. It’s clearly on the positive side of the line. Any film with that score is one that the majority of people are going to be glad they saw when it’s over.
Giving the Black Bird actor a hard time for giving his movie an honest rating is also a little wild considering that if he did give it a much better score, he’d probably get a lot more criticism. If he put Richard Jewell alongside Schindler’s List, one of the best films of the '90s, and arguably one of the greatest films ever made, people would know he’s being disingenuous.
It’s not like Hauser is saying Richard Jewell is a bad movie, though many actors will, given enough time, admit that some of their films aren’t that great. Every great actor has made a bad movie, so it honestly wouldn’t be that wild if the Cobra Kai actor did completely bash a movie of his, but that’s not even what’s happening here.
Hauser’s score is on par with how critics viewed the film when it came out. It sits with a 77% rating on Rotton Tomatoes, though the audience score is significantly higher. Those who saw the movie loved it, although Richard Jewell was not a box-office hit. Honestly, I wrote the Richard Jewell review for CinemaBlend back when it was released, and I was significantly harsher on the movie than others, though it certainly has its bright spots.
Honestly, Richard Jewell is worth seeing, even though I didn’t care for it, I won’t argue with that. It's one of Paul Walter Hauser's best performances. And honestly, that’s a pretty solid review because a lot of movies never reach that level.