Juror #2 (2024)

A film by Clint Eastwood about moral dilemmas, truth, justice, values assigned to people because of their past behaviour and appearance and much more, wrapped up in a courtroom (or rather, mostly, jury's room) drama. When watching, this is what to focus on really rather than thinking about the plot holes and inconsistencies which will just spoil it.

Justin Kemp is played by Nicholas Hoult and the character is called up for jury duty. His wife is about to give birth and he doesn't want to be there, but does the dutiful thing. When he gets into role and starts hearing about the case in question, he quickly realises that the man being accused of murder couldn't have done it - because, he thinks, he did!

Kemp's an ex-alcoholic making good in life, portrayed to us the viewers as someone who used to be bad but now is good, thus further dangling the dilemma in front of his face in the courtroom. If he had done it, it was an accident, but because of his background he fears that the authorities wouldn't believe him and he would be whisked away to prison himself instead. So he deliberates long and hard about doing the 'right' thing weighed up against what he has to personally lose. Keep quiet and let the accused take the rap or do the decent thing and ruin his own life.

The prosecutor is played by Toni Collette by the numbers, J.K. Simmons pops up as another juror with a background and agenda of his own, Kiefer Sutherland jumps in for a couple of scenes as a lawyer Kemp consults and that's about all I know of the cast. They generally play it straight and without thrills and the film does come across at times like a made-for-TV outing I'm afraid. I wasn't convinced that any of them were here for anything much but a payday. There's little tension or suspense, even given the plot and time spent in the jury room, and it takes the film's last two scenes to get any momentum, summarising the above, really.

It's OK - it's just not going to blow anyone's socks off as it trundles along towards the end after 2 hours, seeping out bits of flashback to fill in gaps - and round the characters' stories up about the events surrounding the night in question, 12 months before any of this film is set. It makes its points in the end, verges on being thought-provoking but even that's not good enough to overcome much of the clumsy editing and unhelpful missing data in the plot. Bit of a head-scratcher in the end. It's doing the rounds on one or two streaming services as I write in the UK - but if I were you, unless I had vouchers or points to use, I'd wait 'til it's 'included' somewhere rather than coughin' up your hard-earned.