Directed by Clint Eastwood | Written by Jonathan A. Abrams | 114 min | ▲▲▲△△ | Crave
Juror #2 is a comfortingly old-school American courtroom drama, complete with a first act of lawyers, witnesses, and jurors, and a second act of deliberation. The thing that’s wowing critics is these stories were told frequently in the 1950s — when a movie like this would’ve likely starred Ray Milland or Henry Fonda — and in the John Grisham-infused 1990s, but not often these days except on series television. It’s refreshing to see one of these as a feature film, but that doesn’t make this exceptional, just novel. It’s a solid genre picture, directed with lean efficiency by Clint Eastwood, a wily veteran who can deliver even in his 90s.
Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is a writer living in Georgia, looking forward to the arrival of his first child with his heavily pregnant wife, Allison (Zoey Deutch). He gets called in for jury duty, and on the first day of the trial discovers he has a personal connection to it. The prosecution (Toni Colette, making this an About A Boy reunion 22 years later) says that after an argument a man with a violent past murdered his girlfriend outside a roadside bar. The defence (Chris Messina, after his star turn in last year’s Air going back to anonymous supporting roles) says the woman walked away and the man went home — whatever happened to her, the man didn’t do it. Justin Kemp, an alcoholic, was there that night, and drove off in the rain around the same time. He hit something. Maybe it was a deer. Now he’s thinking maybe it was the woman.
A lawyer friend (Kiefer Sutherland) tells him if he owns up to his part in this he’ll get 30 years. A fellow juror, who we can all see is J.K. Simmons so he must have a bigger role to play, is a former cop. He starts doing some of his own investigating, which naturally starts to point to Justin’s involvement. The picture is cagey about all of it — it refuses to be definitive about anything except the fact that there is reasonable doubt in the prosecution’s case. I’ll just speak for myself — I found the prosecution’s case to be full of holes and based on circumstantial evidence even as the jury is all torches and pitchforks.
One of the interesting things Juror #2 is doing is interrogating the American justice system and finding it wanting, particularly in resource management. It’s constantly reminding us that the people in this line of work don’t have enough support to do their jobs well, that we’re all witness to the shuddering failure of law and order. It’s up the individual to do the right thing, but are they likely to?
Most of the jurors just want to return to their lives and are happy to believe the reputation of the accused is enough to let him hang. We know there’s another possible explanation, but we don’t really know what happened for sure because even when we’re presented with Justin’s memories, they’re pretty damn unconvincing. Statistically when a woman is murdered it’s usually the spouse, and though the picture brings up this damning statistic, it’s not interested in that particular truth. It’s more interested in the nuts and bolts of a justice system where people can’t really be bothered to do their civic duty.
All of this makes for compelling viewing, but what’s less interesting is how Eastwood tells the story. With the exception of a grace in editing — he deftly intercuts the prosecution and defence making their closing arguments — there’s a base simplicity here that makes it feel like it belongs on TV even beyond the material being familiar there. Eastwood isn’t a fussy filmmaker, and that’s a strength in movies like Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, or The Gauntlet. I wouldn’t say that’s the case here.
Still, there’s nothing egregiously wrong with this, not the way there was with chunks of his big hit of almost 10 years ago, American Sniper. If you’re especially a fan of the courtroom drama, don’t miss it, but also don’t expect it to deliver thrills or melodrama. It’s more a dip into the big muddy of a system of justice running on fumes.
