Review: Juror #2

Director:  Clint Eastwood

Stars:  Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons

“Nobody wants to be here,” observes one jury member early in the proceedings that form the focus of Clint Eastwood’s 40th film as director, an opinion that seems to have foolishly – and misguidedly – settled somewhere in the higher ranks of WB, the studio that has elected to bury Juror #2 in spite of its significant pedigree. The movie’s shelving stateside has turned a major work by one of the last bastions of classical Hollywood moviemaking into an unlikely, unexpected underdog. A movie to root for due to circumstances. Separating that sense of bias from the movie itself is important to do, but also wryly ironic, considering bias exists everywhere in Juror #2, even in the line I’ve possibly paraphrased to open my own argument.

Eastwood is often drawn to tales of men in contention with The System, and Juror #2 has two. James Sythe (Gabriel Basso) is a man on trial for the murder of his girlfriend Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood – seen in flashbacks), whose body was discovered at the bottom of a gorge on Old Quarry Road in rural Georgia. He insists on his innocence, refusing a plea and even taking the stand to protest his case. Then there is mild-mannered soon-to-be father Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), the everyman second juror who comes to realise, quickly, that he holds more information about the case than anticipated, and with that the power to sway or upset the verdict. Because Justin is responsible for Kendall’s death, as the memories of a dark and troubled night come flooding back.

Courtroom drama is in the midst of a renaissance at present (Red Rooms, Anatomy of a Fall, Saint Omer etc) possibly as our desire for truth in the midst of muddied media overload grows stronger. And while many of these films bend the form of the subgenre, Juror #2 stares the staple right in the eye and contends with it. Indeed, it’s almost impossible not to think of the Sidney Lumet classic 12 Angry Men as soon as Justin stands up in the deliberation room and protests the quick assertions that Sythe is anything but guilty.

But Juror #2 sprawls where 12 Angry Men hunkered. Further context is everywhere, and key to this sharp investigation of human nature. For one thing, Justin isn’t alone. His efforts to spread reasonable doubt – to assuage his guilt – latch in the mind of fellow juror and ex-cop Harold (J.K. Simmons), and even politically-minded prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) comes to question her own, ahem, conviction. Against the mandates of the system, these individuals pick at new avenues of investigation, allowing Juror #2 to wander off out of the courtroom and further its sense of place and character.

There are a great many conversations happening inside the film, more than I can laundry list here. Theory vs. experience, for instance or, put another way, abstraction vs tactile encounter. Jurors and legal professionals alike are quick to throw Sythe to the wolves while he exists in their minds within a specific set of conventional associations. Biases. There’s some leniency in the writing that allows this to be expanded and toyed with. Jonathan Abrams’ script contends that human interaction with objects of study isn’t just valuable, but necessary.

But this opens up boxes that we – the movie’s jury – might have preferred were left alone. Prejudice eats its way into Juror #2 from every corner, from quick assessment and condemnation of Sythe’s class and character, to the amount of time the jurors have to give over to the process itself. This is especially true of Justin, who’s wife Allison (Zoey Deutch) is at the pressure point of a difficult pregnancy. And that storied history had a direct impact on the motivations moving within Justin the night of his accident on Old Quarry Road. Faith Killebrew (what a perfect name) has her own political motivations. Even weary but faithful defence attorney Eric Resnick (Chris Messina) comes to the case with the baggage of his own long experience making the best of things for the clearly guilty. The drive to come out right for once.

Regret haunts the picture, from Justin who is clearly immensely grieved for the crime he discovers he’s responsible for, to Sythe himself, who has evidently had plenty of time to assess the road that led him to the pulpit. It’s tempting, then, to connect this thematic notion to Eastwood himself, and frame Juror #2 as a late-life picture about the actor/director’s own feelings about the past. That it is in some way personal, even funereal. But Eastwood’s dogged expertise and professionalism – divorced from the controversies of his politics – reject such sentimentalism.

Eastwood presents the court and deliberation rooms in clean, naturalistic style. Their normality abuts the horror of their purpose, and the weight of responsibility that hangs heavy over those struggling through a fraught, imperfect process. Justice herself is referred to in statue form, blind, scales in flux. One might disparagingly describe Juror #2 as workmanlike (a term often applied to Eastwood’s filmography), yet it feels razor sharp. There are cuts and edits here that possess a rascal’s intensity, not least the one that sends us off into the world, dizzy from the journey we’ve taken.

Hoult is astounding. The whole cast turns out for what might be Eastwood’s final film. But Hoult contends with the struggles inhabiting Justin, framed unsparingly by his director. It’s a career-best showcase for the oft-underrated actor, and his casting as this unassuming everyman who can slyly shakedown the world is particularly canny.

Do what you can to make WB rethink their strategy here. There’s a market and a thirst for this kind of rich and thoughtful adult-orientated cinema. In the mixture is a hint of nostalgia for the heydays it recognises and remembers. But, well into his nineties, Eastwood seems as alive as he’s ever been. This is his best offering since 2016’s underrated Sully, and maybe the best of his uneven but always interest late-career bloom. Go represent it.