“While serving as a juror in a high-profile murder trial, a family man finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma, one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict or free the wrong killer.”
SCORE: 7/10
tl/dr: entertaining court room drama that’s not as good as other websites will lead you to believe. If you think this is 90+ you have half a brain.
This right here, this is why I felt COMPELLED to create a website and get my movie takes out there into the world. Fire up a movie aggregating website that may or may not have the same initials as this one and what do you see – 94% critics, 91% audience. What? Were these people watching the same movie that I was? A double 90+ score means Oscar bait, this movie is nowhere near that good. Was it well-made, sure but 90+ is asinine. Who cares if this could be the legend Clint Eastwood’s last movie, this thing is just Not. That. Good.
Nicholas Hoult (Warm Bodies, I don’t remember him from anything else) stars as…. a juror, obviously, in a high-profile murder case. Now, before you ask, I looked and no – this is not a sequel despite the title. There is nothing you need to know from Juror to enjoy watching Juror #2. From the trailer, you can tell where this is going – Nicky was in the bar one night and may have hit something (probably a deer, right? definitely a deer) on his way home. Oh what’s this? At the same bar there was a disagreement between a fiery couple where the woman ended up dead on the side of the road? Interesting… Perhaps this will be a whodunnit? Nope – this whole movie is going to be about morality, and whether one should let someone else (who may or may not be a “bad guy”) take the fall for your mistake.
To start, who the fuck actually gets selected for jury duty? I’ve shown up once in my life, and got to go home after a few hours of twiddling my thumbs. Clint Eastwood knows you know how to get out of jury duty, so don’t worry he has that covered in here. There’s a sassy southern judge in charge of the case, who won’t let dumb excuses like “I used to drive this guy on the bus” and “my wife is pregnant” get you off the case. I mean are these real excuses these people thought would work? The jurors know what the case is, how about a “I’ve been the victim of domestic violence” or a “I know the suspect’s brother”. Terrible attempted excuses aside, the panel of 12 jurors that get put together is laughably bad. This is supposed to be a very high-profile case, KEY to the DA (Toni Collete) being reelected in the county because she’s “tough on crime” and a “protector of women”. Without getting into spoilers, there’s like 4 jurors that have a conflict of interest in the case when all is said and done.
Next, let’s talk about the case. I’m not an attorney, and like re-blooded americans all of my court room knowledge comes from SVU and A Few Good Men. The evidence the state is bringing against the suspect is basically “they got in a fight at a bar and then she ended up dead”. That’s literally it. The attention to detail is so poor in basic concepts of how the judicial system works, while simultaneously trying to be an entire movie about how some of it is flawed, it ruins the entire thing.
Back to Nick and his morality… without getting into spoilers his whole thing is “shit was it me?” and “shit if they find out I’m going to get thrown in jail for life”. Back to the above paragraph – on what fucking grounds? There’s no evidence? There’s in fact no evidence to arrest anyone in this stupid movie.
Anyway – watch it. Better than most of the crap out there these days, but calling this a Clint Eastwood masterclass is bananas.
Spoilers:
- By the end you pretty much know, OK, this woman was clearly hit and killed by a hit and run. A major plot point for why this trial is even going forward is the medical examiner saying she dies from blunt force trauma to the head, and likely NOT a car. How the fuck could you get hit by a car and there be no evidence? Or said another way, how could anyone with half a brain say “yea she definitely didn’t get hit by a car” when she’s found DEAD next to a fucking road, after a stormy night.
- JK Simmons being a cop and none of the attorneys figuring that out…what? How is that possible.
- The dude from Reno 911 was terrible, his acting was brutal.
- Dumb ending should have left it with the conversation on the park bench.
- How does the defense attorney not just ask the geriatric “witness” to count how many fingers he’s holding up?
- The wife in this, sup?