Movie Reviews

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Juror #2

♥️♥️ 1/2

Juror #2 --Official Trailer • Max • YouTube

Juror #2 • Max • PG-13 • 1 hr. 54 min. • 2 min. read

This is the 40th film directed by nonagenarian and living legend Clint Eastwood. Direction, editing, lighting, sound and acting are excellent. The film is dragged down by a bad screenplay (Jonathan A. Abrams), particularly the denouement.

Recovering alcoholic and soon to be dad, Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is selected for jury duty for a murder trial involving the death of a blonde (Francesca Eastwood) found on a rocky ravine below a bridge. The man on trial is her boyfriend James (Gabriel Basso) who has a criminal record and with whom she was arguing at a bar the night of her death. Coincidentally, Justin was at the bar that night, knows what happened and faces a crisis of conscience as he struggles whether to come forward.

Technically, this film gets an "A" because it's near perfect. However, it's lean like a boneless, skinless chicken breast unlike the rich fried chicken the Savannah Georgia locale is famous for. The subplots--James' struggle with sobriety, his wife's (Zoey Deutch) tribulations with a high-risk pregnancy, the prosecutor (Toni Collete) running for D.A., the attraction the defense attorney (Chris Messina) has to the prosecutor--all need to be more developed. We don't know what EXACTLY motivated James to change his vote from "not guilty" to "guilty?" (This could be explained by a preceding scene in which James' wife is bleeding and almost loses the baby.) The final scene abruptly ends the movie.

The acting is top-notch. Nicholas Hoult with his piercing blue eyes does a good job as the conflicted James. Zoey Deutch is huggable as his pregnant wife Ally and deserved more screen time. Toni Collette is outstanding as Faith Killebrew, the prosecutor. The underrated and underutilized Chris Messina is very good as Erik Resnick, the defence attorney who pines for Faith.

I admire this movie but at the same time I see its faults and imagine how they could have been corrected. This movie is recommended for Eastwood fans who want to see a technically superb movie but can tolerate an incredible chance circumstance, an unexplained change in a character's decision and an abrupt denouement.