If you think jury duty is a drag, consider how much worse it could be to judge if you discovered, on the first day of trial, that the defendant was accused of a terrible crime for which you were in fact responsible. That’s the title of Clint Eastwood’s latest — and some fear last — film, “Juror No. 2,” a somewhat preposterous but utterly engaging extension of the 94-year-old director’s career-long passion for guilt, justice, and the limitations of life. law.
In the films Eastwood stars in, guns go a long way to solving problems the system can’t. But the director does not appear in “Juror No. 2,” a morality-minded courtroom drama in which Nicholas Hoult plays the lone holdout in a murder trial. The film may begin on a note of idealism, but it quickly turns to cynicism as Holt’s character, “perfect” husband and upstanding citizen Justin Kemp, respects the jury summons, even though he would rather go home with his pregnant wife Allie (Zoe). Dutch).
Justin asks to be excused, but is chosen anyway, assembling dozens of people who would rather be doing anything other than their civic duty. The whole process is a “waste of our time” and “my kids need me,” Justin’s fellow jurors complain, while he has a completely different set of reasons for wanting to reach the right verdict.
Once prosecuting attorney Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) describes the murder – a clear case of domestic violence in her opinion – Justin realizes he was there at the roadside bar on the night in question. Even more disturbing is that he begins to wonder if the deer that struck him on his way home wasn’t a deer at all, but rather the victim, Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood).
What are the odds? It’s best not to wonder. Either you’re on board with the premise or you’re not in a movie that takes the resulting predicament seriously, and invites audiences to think about what they would do in Justin’s shoes. To further complicate matters, the father-to-be is an alcoholic, and his sponsor (Kiefer Sutherland) – who also happens to be a lawyer – advises him that if he comes forward, no one will believe he was sober on the night. In question.
It’s no coincidence that the film is set in Georgia, where first-degree murder is treated as a felony. The location gives Colette (but no one else in the cast) a chance to sing a thick Southern accent, as her character alternates between the court and the campaign trail. Faith is running for district attorney on a tough platform against domestic violence, and this case could propel her to victory, making the truth as uncomfortable for her as it is for Justine. (On the other hand, Chris Messina plays a public defender who seems desperate.)
Once the trial is over and deliberations begin, Eastwood seems to be banking on our viewing of “12 Angry Men,” dangling the possibility that Justin can influence the rest of the jury to acquit — or nudge them toward a guilty verdict, allowing Kendall’s friend James Cythe (Gabriel Basso ) bears responsibility. But Jonathan Abrams’ script has some twists, which seem to fit with Eastwood’s more skeptical view of the legal process.
Early on, Justin gives a short speech worthy of Frank Capra about how the defendant deserves the benefit of the doubt, but it’s clearly Justin’s conscience that speaks. Ten jurors are ready to convict, while Justin finds an ally in Harold (J.K. Simmons), a former police detective whose gut tells him the defendant is innocent.
Justin realizes that the problem with influencing others is that they are operating based on prejudices – which amounts to a harsh criticism of the “peer” system under which juries operate. Like the police and prosecutors, these fictional civilians are prone to bias, and only consider evidence that supports their hastily arrived at conclusions. Of course, everything could be resolved very quickly if Justin came clean.
Here, I was reminded of a little-seen but utterly fascinating silent film by director John M. Stahl called Woman Under Oath, which challenges the sexist idea that women might be too emotional or irrational to serve on juries (the progressive drama released in 1919, nearly two decades before New York gave responsibility to women). In the film, 11 men are ready to convict, while the state’s first female juror insists that the defendant is innocent – and she has to know! In the end, she revealed that she was the killer, and justified her act to the jury, who acquitted the suspect while keeping her secret.
This film is worth mentioning for two reasons: first, Woman Under Oath deserves to be rediscovered, and second, there’s nothing like putting a perpetrator in front of a jury to turn the process on its head. In the hands of another director, the situation might play like melodrama, but Eastwood’s earnest, no-nonsense style makes it seem less far-fetched, focusing our attention on Justin’s dilemma.
Editor Joel Cox and his son David keep cutting close-ups of Justin’s face, while Holt conveys his turmoil through sly eyes and nervous glances—feelings he would certainly hide in real life. He’s not the only character facing a crisis of conscience here either: Faith eventually begins to question her own case, which may jeopardize her political ambitions, while offering Colette a chance to redeem a character who was once considered an obstacle to justice and now seems like Eastwood’s more worthy hero.
After nearly an hour of narrative dialogue designed to tease out Justin’s guilt, Abrams’ script plays a trick at the end, skipping over the jury’s final vote to surprise us when the verdict is read in court—an effective cheat, dramatically. Which leaves Justin’s most important decision off screen. Although there is a lot to chew on throughout the film, the film’s ambiguous final few scenes trust us to be the judge.
As always, Eastwood respects our intelligence. However, Juror No. 2 is something of an anomaly in his oeuvre: it ranks among his quieter films, abandoning spectacle in favor of self-reflection. One could argue that the entire system is on trial, however, the only angry man here is Eastwood, not the jury, as Dirty Harry comes out not in force, but in a discordant whisper.