JUROR #2 (2024)

Currently 94, Clint Eastwood’s cinematic swansonging continues.  Fortunately, for the most part, the projects have been darn interesting.  (THE MULE/’18 probably strongest of this late flourishing: https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-mule-2018.html.)  This time he stays off-screen to direct an original script by Jonathan A. Abrams.  Original if you don’t know the jury-room dramatics of 12 ANGRY MEN/’57 or the guilty man charged with solving a crime he likely committed.  (See THE BIG CLOCK/’48 with Ray Milland or NO WAY OUT/’87 with Kevin Costner which share source material.)  Here, the ‘guilty’ juror is Nicholas Hoult, trying to thread the needle between letting off a defendant he knows didn’t kill his own wife and keeping himself far from suspicion.  Cleanly handled by Eastwood & well cast (in addition to Hoult; D.A. Toni Collette; J.K. Simmons a jurist with background issues; Kiefer Sutherland in a bit because he always wanted to work with Eastwood; and a very good Chris Messina as Public Defender.*)  If only the first act and last half of the third were as good as the middle section, where Eastwood loosens up a bit and lets natural consequences turn the screws of the twisty plot.  But glaringly convenient loopholes in the first act, to say nothing of a voir dire so cursory it would have had both lawyers barred for life, needlessly stumble.  (Has anyone ever been empaneled on a jury without being asked if they knew anyone, let alone were employed on a police force?)  Then, they chose the ‘wrong’ ending, bringing back Collette when it’s Simmons who ought to be knocking at the door.  You’d think someone was in a rush to wrap this up before fixing the script.  Oh yeah . . . 94.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  Regardless of quality, the shabby treatment from Warner Bros. in releasing the film, little publicity, shortened theatrical window in spite of excellent notices, was a disgraceful way to treat a loyal filmmaker who’s done so much (and made so much) for the industry and particularly Warners where he’s long parked his production company shingle after moving from Universal decades ago.  Shame on Warners CEO David Zaslav.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *On the debit side, some of the ‘ethnic’ characterizations might charitably be called ‘retro.’