Politically, we might be on different planets, but my admiration and respect for director Clint Eastwood is boundless when it comes to movies. Now in his 90s, the iconic action star turned filmmaker talks about retirement (say it isn’t so!). Even his occasional fumbles, like the dismal Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, contain lively surprises and a work of consummate skill, control and suspense—such as Juror #2, which finds him at the top of his game—proves he’s still got plenty of skill and imagination to spare. Hopefully, Eastwood’s career has no end in sight.
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JUROR #2 ★★★ (3.5/4 stars) |
Although Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil turned out to be a big mistake, Eastwood loved making it so much that he returns to the same setting in Savannah, Georgia, for his latest film, a shattering courtroom drama that keeps you on the edge of your seat from the first scene to last. When Juror #2 ends, your nails may very well be shorter. Nicholas Hoult, one of the best of the young breed of actors currently impacting the movie scene, plays Justin Kemp, a successful, clean-cut Savannah journalist with a new home, a promising career and a pregnant wife. When he gets the annoying notice for jury duty, he does what we all do—he tries to get out of it and fails. Assigned to a serious case of homicide, he hopes it will be over soon, but as the facts are unraveled by the dead-serious prosecuting attorney (Toni Collette, in the best performance of her career) and the equally dedicated defense (Chris Messina), it turns into a high-profile courtroom thriller with many mysterious twists to uncover.
The defendant is accused of drinking with his girlfriend in a bar on a stormy October night when they fought, and he turned her out in the pouring rain to walk home alone, then beat and murdered her, leaving her to die. Now, by sheer coincidence, Justin finds he’s on the jury to decide the fate of the man on trial, and in the opening arguments, he realizes he was in the bar at the same time and discovered the body on his way home in the blinding fog. He thought he hit a deer, but it was really the girl. A moral dilemma ensues. It was an accident, but if he’s honest and admits it was the dead girl he hit instead of a deer, it could mean 30 years to life. The screenplay by Jonathan Abrams, Eastwood’s direction and the uniformly great acting are so sincere and believable that you’ll find this movie impossible to watch without asking yourself, “What would I do?”
The trial, the cross-examinations and the summaries are all familiar (and slightly dull) until Justin becomes the only juror who refuses to vote guilty. His objections based on lack of evidence are so convincing that another juror (the always reliable J.K. Simmons), a retired ex-cop named Harold, decides in the private jury room to join him, becoming the second of the 12 jurors to vote not guilty. A deadlock ensues, and Harold illegally pursues new evidence that sways the case, resulting in a hung jury, 6 to 6. Breaking the law, he is fired by the prosecuting attorney, opening up a can of worms that could lead to either a conviction or a hung jury, change the verdict and end in a mistrial. How does it end? I won’t ruin the outcome with any spoilers. I’ll simply say it’s worth the effort it takes to make your own discovery about what happens to a good person caught up in terrible circumstances.
I haven’t seen a courtroom drama this riveting since Witness for the Prosecution. Clint Eastwood builds tension so palpitating you could sweat profusely and then faint. In a star-making performance, Nicholas Hoult has the rare ability to relate every emotion as much with his facial expressions as he does with dialogue. The film has two endings and an epilogue that asks new questions about the definition of justice. If Juror #2 does turn out to be Clint Eastwood’s final film, he’s gone out with fireworks.
