Juror #2

 You have to suspend disbelief a little during the first 20 minutes of Clint Eastwood's legal drama Juror #2 (2024).  This 114 minute long film has an attack this is both hard and expeditious -- the fundamental premise and the protagonist's dilemma are all efficiently established in movies brisk opening scenes.  A thug is being tried for the murder of his girlfriend, found battered beneath a bridge on Old Quarry Road.  At the trial, Juror #2 is a recovering alcoholic named Justin Kemp.  By unfortunate coincidence, Kemp was at the bar called Rowdy's on the night of the alleged murder.  Tempted to drink, he withstood that urge but was distraught at the memory of the loss of twin babies by miscarriage a year earlier.  On the way home in a downpour, Kemp hits something.  In the rain, he can't determine what his car struck.  There is a sign warning about deer on the narrow road and bridge.  Of course, this place is Old Quarry Road, the site of the alleged murder.  Justin, accordingly, is plunged into a moral and ethical quandary.  The alleged perpetrator is probably innocent -- it was Justin's vehicle that smashed into the victim and pitched her body headlong into the ravine.  So Justin is called upon to decide as a juror a case in which, in fact, he is most likely the true perpetrator of the killing.  It takes some maneuvering to get Justin into this melodramatic, high-stakes conflict of interest.  First, the case is supposedly celebrated and intensely covered by media --  in fact, the killing and trial serves as a springboard for the career of an aggressive and opportunistic female DA (played well by the tough-as-nails Toni Collette); so why doesn't Justin already know about this situation and take measures to avoid jury duty?  Second, the dilemma posed by the film is implausible:  during voir dire, Justin could simply say that he happened to be at the bar on the night of the killing, has knowledge about the tavern's layout and habitues and the relevant weather as well -- this would disqualify him from jury service without him having to acknowledge the incident on the way home.  (The scriptwriter's response to this criticism would be to say that Justin is a recovering alcoholic in AA and would not want to admit to his fellows and wife that he was in the bar -- even though the movie shows that he didn't actually drink in the place.) Second, Justin's wife is heavily pregnant.  In most circumstances, a trial judge (who is after all an elected official) would be loathe to appear insensitive to the prospective juror's situation at home and would excuse him from service.  Third, of course, a reasonable forensic autopsy would reveal that the woman died by reason of a hit-and-run accident and was not the victim of some kind of beating.  (The scriptwriter would respond that the alleged perpetrator, the boyfriend, is a bad guy, a former member of a violent, drug-dealing gang, and the police with their forensic allies are collaborating to remove this fellow from the streets -- in fact, it is stipulated that the cops and investigators focused solely on the boyfriend -- named symbolically Sythe ("scythe").  The film functions as a bargain basement, poor man's Billy Budd, a compelling exploration of the nature of justice and the institutions that serve that principle.  But you will have to overlook some implausible features in the contrivances that the movie requires to put the scary, and very interesting, plot in motion.

The picture is cynical about fact-finding by jurors.  After the set-up, most of the movie involves jury deliberations giving the movie something of the feeling of the famous play and film Twelve Angry Men.  Almost immediately, the jurors violate their oath.  One of them doesn't understand the burden of proof on the State and blithely proclaims that the defendant is guilty because he hasn't proven himself to be innocent "beyond a reasonable doubt."  Other jurors respond with boredom and indifference to the evidence -- they just want to be home for supper.  One of the jurors is apparently stoned all the time.  Many of them provide personal anecdotal evidence of their own in support of their opinions -- they import all sorts of irrelevant and impermissible information into the their deliberations.  (A third-year medical student offers informal "expert" evidence.) Several are overtly biased and not interested in even discussing the evidence.  For instance, an argumentative Black man distrusts the whole system but wants to see Sythe convicted because t defendant was previously a drug dealer and part of a gang that killed his little brother.  A retired detective uses his influence on the jury, explaining errors in the police work leading to Sythe's arrest -- the film often works against type: the Black man hates the system but wants to see a conviction; the ex-cop argues for acquittal.  Of course, Justin adamantly refuse to convict, but can't explain why.  Unfortunately, I think the film's account of jury deliberations is likely very accurate -- the jurors consider all sorts of inadmissible evidence, are biased, and their arguments are, often, laughably illogical. The ex-cop investigates the case himself and gets thrown off the jury for misconduct.  (The retired detective is played by J.K. Simmonds).  The DA begins to doubt the case and conducts her own informal investigation, concluding that she's probably accusing the wrong person of the homicide.  But she has too much at stake to withdraw the case from the protracted jury deliberations then underway.  The script draws a strong parallel between the DA who acts against her own conscience and Justin whose wellbeing and happiness depends upon Sythe being wrongfully convicted -- in fact, the film's last ten minutes is mostly dominated by impressive, if elliptical, scenes involving these two principles, Toni Collette and Nicholas Hoult (the last shot shows the two figures glaring at one another face-to-face). 

The film is effectively constructed, fluently cutting between the trial, Justin's home and his pregnant wife, with flashbacks clarifying his dilemma.  Eastwood's esthetic involves maximum clarity and simplicity and, for my taste, he makes things a little too schematic -- although much of the film involves ambiguity about what actually occurred on the night in question, some final flashbacks purport to represent the truth.  Although the film's ending is unresolved and very bleak, the actual course of events under consideration is established beyond any reasonable doubt -- I thought that this was a weakness  in the movie.  The picture eschews any distracting camera-work -- it's austere, well-lit and looks a bit like a carefully designed made-for-TV movie.  There is no "atmosphere" -- although the film is shot in Savannah, Georgia, the movie could be set anywhere in the English-speaking world.  Nothing is metaphorical or symbolic with the exception of a single shot at the outset of the movie in which Justin's pregnant wife is blindfolded like the allegorical image of justice.  Despite poetic license (for instance, the accused testifies at trial -- not likely given his felonious background), the movie is reasonably realistic with respect to the details involving criminal procedure and jury trial.  Eastwood, now in his early nineties, seems to be alluding to his earlier career -- Hoult looks like Eastwood as a young man with his square jaw and handsome regular features that are, more than a little, masklike and impassive.  (Eastwood had no trouble playing enigmatic, taciturn drifters as the "Man with No Name.")  The tavern where the fatal quarrel between Sythe and his girlfriend occurs is called "Rowdy's", perhaps a reference to the character of Rowdy Yates played by Eastwood on TV's Rawhide.