Juror #2: Justice Is on Trial in Director Clint Eastwood’s Intelligent Latest
By Liz Braun
Rating: A
A great script and a great cast are key to Juror #2, a gripping moral study dressed up as a courtroom drama.
Written by Jonathan A. Abrams and directed by Clint Eastwood, Juror #2 centres on Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), an everyman type called up for jury duty. He and his wife (Zoey Deutch) are expecting their first child any day, so he doesn’t really want to serve on any jury, but he gets chosen.
It’s a murder case. As Justin listens to the details about a dead woman and the man on trial for killing her, it slowly dawns on him that he is far more involved in the case than he knew.
Justin knows the accused is innocent. He goes to his own lawyer (Kiefer Sutherland) for advice and comes away knowing exactly what he has to do next for his own survival.
This much you can see in the movie trailer. But what unfolds in Juror #2 is an intriguing look at the justice system and how we judge one another — perception, reality, the machinations of conscience and justifying one’s actions.
The trial scenes present the prosecutor (Toni Collette) as an ambitious character hoping to be elected DA. The man on trial (Gabriel Basso) is a thug, with a criminal past, gang tattoos, and a history of domestic violence.
When it’s time for the jury to begin deliberations, a verdict seems obvious. The other jurors are glad of that, because they’re busy with their own lives and keen to get on with it.
How it all begins to change and shiftshape under Justin’s influence is the clever heart of the storytelling.
Also in the cast of Juror #2 are J.K. Simmons, Cedric Yarbrough and Adrienne C. Moore as fellow jury members, and Chris Messina as the public defender. Every character in the film contributes to storytelling that defies expectation, and Hoult is superb as Justin — often unreadable, making him perfect as a guide to issues where nothing is clear-cut. Juror #2 is all about shades of grey, and Hoult’s performance is a big part of that.
Juror #2 is intelligent entertainment. If it prompts you to think about the current political situation and issues of disinformation, manipulation or self-interest, well, that would be a bonus.
Earlier this week, trade publications asked if Warner Bros. was burying Juror #2, as the studio is releasing the film in very few theatres. And they asked whether Juror #2 would be 94-year-old Clint Eastwood’s last movie.
“Let’s hope not,” is the answer to both questions.
Juror #2. Directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Jonathan A. Abrams. Starring Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Chris Messina, Kiefer Sutherland, and J.K. Simmons. In theatres November 1.