Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Suppose you were a recovering alcoholic who strayed into a local bar, nearly relapsed, and, whiled driving home in a downpour, you hit something or someone on a dimly lit road at a deer crossing. And suppose you and your wife are expecting your first baby. So begins Juror #2, a legal thriller that unfolds in a Savannah, Georgia courtroom.
Journalist Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) has just been named as the titular juror in the trial of James Sythe (Gabriel Basso), charged with the murder of his girlfriend Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood). From the beginning, the deck appears stacked against Sythe who became drunk and disorderly, got into an altercation with Kendall whom he then followed when she stormed out of the bar, and was allegedly seen near the place where her body was found. Prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Colette) knows that his murder conviction will significantly boost her campaign for District Attorney. To compound Sythe’s problems, his public defender Eric Resnick (Chris Messina) makes numerous missteps in the defense arguments.
Troubled by the possibility that he might have caused Kendall’s death, Justin seeks advice from Larry Lasker (Kiefer Sutherland), a defense attorney and his AA sponsor. Lasker warns Justin that, due to his long record of DUIs, he would be difficult to defend in a court of law. While most jurors believe Sythe is guilty, Justin tries to get them to consider other possibilities like a possible hit-and-run that starts changing some of their minds. Juror and former homicide detective Harold Chicowski (J.K. Simmons) begins his own “investigation” and finds that Justin’s car is one of 15 vehicles recently repaired in a local body shop. When Justin gets word of this, he has Harold disqualified from the jury. As the trial proceeds, Killebrew begins having her own doubts about the case and visits the owners of the vehicles in question, including the one driven by Justin. She finds that the car is registered to his wife Ally (Zoe Deutsch) who covers for her husband’s activities on that night. The trial results in the expected conviction, thanks to Justin’s urging for a guilty verdict, but a Hitchcockian twist appears at the film’s conclusion.
Juror #2 is Clint Eastwood’s 41st film as director in a body of work covering numerous genres, that includes True Crime also involving a man wrongly convicted of murder. This latest film using a script by Jonathan Abrams may be his Hollywood swan song but with this nonagenarian’s powers of endurance, who knows. While not the strongest crime drama in his portfolio, Eastwood again reveals his legendary ability to draw great performances from a very strong cast. British actor Nicholas Hoult has had a remarkable range of starring roles. In Juror #2, he portrays, in an understated way, a man who has overcome his personal demons—or so it seems—and who is trying to live a better life in anticipation of a new baby. Aussie screen veteran Toni Collette has also starred in a wide range of films and effectively displays the conflict between her professional ambitions and f a possible wrongful murder conviction. The smaller roles undertaken by Simmons, Messina, and Sutherland are also top-notch. Juror #2 succeeds without resorting to much of the explicit violence—nearly all at the beginning—that has marked much of Eastwood’s earlier work and does so in a manner that will make his audiences weigh the themes of guilt and innocence in our contemporary system of justice. Highly recommended
Juror #2 is now streaming on Max and is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video
- Rating Certificate: PG-13 (for some violent images and strong language.)
- Studios & Distributors: Dichotomy Films | Malpaso Productions | Warner Bros. Pictures
- Director: Clint Eastwood
- Written By: Jonathan Abrams
- Country: USA
- Language: English
- Run Time: 114 Mins.
- Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
- Release Date: 20 December 2024