If you’re looking for a solid courtroom drama with a bit of jury tampering, Juror #2 is a great choice. Featuring an all-star cast, great production values, and a steady flow, this is a movie that’s easy to watch. Following it, however, will be just a tad bit trickier as storytelling is quite wobbly. Clint Eastwood said that this is the last movie he’s going to be directing. After all, he’s fucking 94 years old. This is another reason why you might want to check out Juror #2. The story follows Justin Kemp, a young journalist struggling with alcoholism. With a baby on the way, Justin decides to clean up his act and stops drinking when he receives a jury duty notice.
What he will have to do decide next is going to change not just his but many other lives and Justin doesn’t know what’s the right thing to do. As you can notice we have the good old moral dilemma thing as the main hook. What would you do if you found yourself in a similar situation and so forth. At least the big reveal happens quite early in the story, some 15 minutes in. From that moment on, the stakes are raised to the maximum. The whole vibe feels like a “based upon a novel” kind of thing but as far as I could find out, this is an original script by Jonathan A. Abrams. Despite all the moral questions, the story itself along with the obligatory twists, feels a bit superficial.
Like it belongs in some much more commercial and smaller production. Back in my day, we used to say “made for TV” but I guess that’s now made for streaming. And that’s exactly what the execs from Warner Bros. were thinking as they first slated Juror #2 to premiere on their HBO Max streaming service. However, they soon changed their minds and gave the movie a limited theatrical (just 50 theaters) release. You can say they did Clint dirty after he’s been making movies for them for more than 50 years. With proper marketing, I think they had a commercially viable product but I guess it was more important to boost their streaming service.
Well, with that out of the way, I guess I should tell you that the first thing that’s going to hit you when you eventually play this movie is the cast. Nicholas Hoult confidently carries the entire weight of the story on his broad shoulders. For the past ten years, he’s proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he’s one of the greats. I especially recommend you check him out as the bad guy in The Order, based on actual events. In almost every scene you will be going: hey, I know this guy or that’s that girl from that television show. Perhaps Toni Collette and Kiefer Sutherland are the two biggest names among them.
Just a couple of months ago, I rewatched another great movie about jury duty: Runaway Jury. Now, that’s a more flashier affair featuring faster pacing and that early 2000s atmosphere, so it’s a good follow-up choice. While that was a story about jury manipulation and gun control, this one is about domestic violence. As a fan of true crime, I’ve seen too many real-life stories about this topic. I’ll give you two very different examples. The first one is the case of Emily Lambert featuring a male killer while the second one is the case of Courtney Clenney.
Juror #2 was mostly filmed in Savannah, Georgia which looks absolutely stunning. This picturesque little town is one of Clint’s favorite’s and you might remember it from another one of his classics, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writer: Jonathan A. Abrams
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Messina, Gabriel Basso
Fun Facts: The actress who plays the murder victim Kendall Carter is Francesca Eastwood, Clint’s daughter.
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IMDb Link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27403986/
