“Juror #2” - Film Review
“You never know what a dozen strangers are going to do.” Such is the reality of the American judicial system. The 7th Amendment in the United States Constitution protects the right to a trial by jury. Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 takes the audience inside the courtroom and into the seat of a jury member. While most of us have likely been summoned for jury duty, it’s rare to actually be chosen. Rarer still is the likelihood of being selected for a crime that has regional or national intrigue. Tonally uneven, but still a thrill of a morality play, Juror #2 harkens back to an era of mid-budget filmmaking that audiences have been clamoring for.
By all accounts, Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is a family man. He’s married to Ally (Zoey Deutch) who is pregnant with a baby girl. The two are still reeling from the miscarriage of their twins the year prior. As excited as they are for their daughter to arrive, the couple is nervous about the possibility of another miscarriage. To add stress to their lives, Justin is summoned for jury duty. He is selected for what turns out to be a high-profile case of a man (Gabriel Basso) who has been accused of brutally killing his girlfriend (Francesca Eastwood). As the facts of the case are revealed, Justin realizes he may have firsthand knowledge that could sway the outcome of the case.
courtesy of Warner Bros.
The ’80s and ’90s were the golden age of the mid-budget political and/or judicial thriller. Movies like The Pelican Brief, No Way Out, Air Force One, and others make up a genre that doesn’t really exist today. Juror #2 is a return to that form, one that director Eastwood is quite familiar with. Its look is far glossier than anything that was attainable in the ’80s and ’90s, but if you overlay a film grain, Juror #2 would fit right in with that era. It’s a type of movie that is fairly small-scale, but the human-focused morality drama effortlessly sucks the audience in. Never mind that the script’s dialogue between the husband and the wife is stilted, and the jury members come across as people painted with broad strokes instead of real, personal details. Juror #2 gets a lot of traction simply because the story is not that far-fetched and the audience is forced to ponder what they would do if they ever found themselves in Justin’s shoes.
From a technical standpoint, Juror #2 leaves a lot to be desired. The editing at the beginning of the film awkwardly stumbles the audience through introductions of the cast of characters in an overt way. The audience doesn’t need to see the conveniently placed jury summons in order to understand the early conversation between Justin and Ally at the opening of the film. From the title alone, they can put those pieces together. It’s instances like this, and others throughout the film, that make one wish Eastwood trusted his audience a little more. While the film’s overarching narrative is well-constructed, the dialogue is unnatural. Luckily, the film’s main cast is talented enough to mostly mask these lines of dialogue.
courtesy of Warner Bros.
The central question at the heart of Juror #2 is a morality drama that plays out with Justin and his fellow jurors, but also with the Assistant District Attorney Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) and public defender Eric Resnick (Chris Messina). Faith and Eric’s relationship goes back to their law school days, but their present realities are very different. Faith is running for office while Eric is trying to help those who cannot afford a fancy lawyer. They are on opposite sides of this case and opposite sides of their own questions of morality when it comes to the judicial system. If this review was to be more specific about the ways they butt heads or what happens in the jury deliberation room, it would ruin what Juror #2 has to offer.
“Sometimes the truth isn’t justice.” Juror #2 is an updated and expanded take on 12 Angry Men. While not as tightly paced as the 1950s classic, Juror #2 belongs to a bygone era and its return is more than welcome.
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