How can you sit on a jury knowing the crime you’re listening to is a crime you’ve committed? In what is likely Clint Eastwood’s final directing feature, Juror #2 paints this picture in a tense courtroom procedural. Nicholas Hoult plays Justin Kemp, our titular juror #2 who sits on a case where a man is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend when Kemp believes he accidentally killed her. W Juror #2 is a thrilling procedural with outstanding performances by its ensemble cast.
With this movie, before even getting into the review, we have to start by saying it is shameful that Warner Bros took this movie, gave it almost no marketing, put it in only a handful of theaters in a couple of states, and then buried it on Max. Let alone this movie rocks and would have had an audience in theaters, but to give the legend that is Clint Eastwood the cold shoulder and disrespect is embarrassing. Even if you don’t believe the movie will make a profit, what Clint Eastwood has done for the industry deserves respect, especially having his last picture on a large scale for everyone to see. It is embarrassing for the higher-ups at WB to have to be bullied into adding more theaters and campaigning for awards thanks to positive audience reactions. Will they ever learn? Probably not, but hopefully studios will give directors and creatives the respect they’ve earned and deserve.
Rant over, now back to the movie.
What really worked for me with Juror #2 is how the story is told. Even with all the marketing of this movie telling you that Hoult’s character committed the murder he was sitting on trial for, the movie slowly drip-fed us information about that night that gave us more context. I liked that with each witness, each time that Justin thought about that night, we got a new angle on the incident from a new perspective.
Nicholas Hoult fills this role perfectly. Justin Kemp is, by all accounts, a good person with his demons who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. His internal battle wears heavy on him, and he plays it perfectly with his eyes. He is caught between trying to protect his growing family and the guilt of sending an innocent man to prison for a crime he committed. Throughout the movie, the guilt weighs heavier and heavier but so does the pressure of becoming a father and his wife needing him to be there.
There is this theme that Mike Flanagan put well on Letterboxd, saying “Good people can do awful things, bad people can still be innocent; people can indeed change, but that change doesn’t eclipse their responsibility… justice isn’t simple.” This movie lives in that grey area but is set in a courtroom, where there is no room for anything that isn’t black or white. Each character blurs the line of right and wrong to various degrees. It helps to externalize Justin’s internal conflict
I do feel like the movie does make some logical leaps and doesn’t develop some ideas as much as they should. J.K. Simmons’s character plays a pivotal role in the middle of the movie and he gets the boot shortly after. He could’ve been utilized more as the former detective who does more than drop the clues for Toni Collette’s prosecutor to use and disappear. I feel like thinking of this movie in the same vein as 12 Angry Men is not fair. Outside of having our two leads being the dissenting voices in a murder case trying to convince the other jurors of the accused’s innocence, the similarities stop there. The debates in the backroom weren’t as engaging as I would’ve hoped, especially when there were some logical gaps in the court case. Now, you can argue the point of the movie isn’t the nitty-gritty of the case but more the struggle of Jack, but they play hand in hand when the outcome of the case directly impacts Jack’s personal life and his ethical struggle.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Juror #2 is very good. It tells a riveting story with mature themes that know it doesn’t hold your hand. Nicholas Hoult delivers an extremely profound emotional performance, well supported by the cast around him. If this really is the last movie Clint Eastwood makes, I hope he knows that he made one that will be remembered extremely fondly and that a lot of people will enjoy.
