‘Juror #2’ Review: If This Riveting Courtroom Drama Becomes Clint Eastwood’s Final Film Then He Is Finishing On Top – AFI Fest

Clint Eastwood‘s 42nd, and possibly last film as director (hope not), Juror #2, also happens to be his best since American Sniper. At 94 years old this remarkable filmmaker not only still has it, he actually has it in spades over some half his age.

Delivering a classic courtroom drama , not a genre he has worked much in, he has made not just a riveting suspenseful thriller and family drama, but also one with penetrating themes such as moral complexity and dealing with a crisis of conscience. It asks the question: what would you do in a similar circumstance, but doesn’t answer that with easy solutions. It’s complicated to say the least. Eastwood, working with a fine original screenplay by Jonathan Abrams, has made one of the most compelling human dramas of his career, and one that inevitably will resonate with smart adult audiences. You could hear a pin drop at Sunday’s World Premiere as the closing night gala of AFI Fest at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Nicholas Hoult stars as Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), a regional magazine writer and dedicated family man married to Allison (Zoey Deutch) who is nearing the end of a problem nine month pregnancy and needs her husband close by when he is summoned to jury duty. He explains his situation to the judge but she will have none of it and,as it turns out, he is selected to sit on a jury for a murder trial involving a woman Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) meeting a brutal death and ending up dead in a ditch off a dark road on a stormy night. She had gotten into a public fight in a roadside bar with her volatile boyfriend, James Sythe (Gabe Basso) who becomes the one and only suspect as prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) paints a picture of a guy who followed her down the road in his car and beating her to death. They even have an older male witness who fingers him as the man he saw in the storm getting back into his car and driving off.

But is it as easy as that? Certainly Public Defender Erik Resnick (Chris Messina) doesn’t think so and valiantly tries to suggest it was a hit and run and could have been anyone. As the lawyers bicker over the gruesome details, the camera begins focusing on the increasingly concerned face of Justin who slowly realizes this case is uncomfortably possible to be something he may have unwittingly been responsible for. In flashbacks to the events of that night we see him alone in the same bar with a drink in front of him, and then leaving and driving home in that bad weather, suddenly losing control and hitting something. He gets out of his car, now dented in front and believes it might have been an animal since there is a deer crossing warning sign right there, but he sees nothing and drives on. As he sits in the jury box Justin starts to wonder, was it he who was actually responsible for Kendall’s death?

Although he didn’t have that drink, it is revealed Justin is a recovering alcoholic who had previously been in legal trouble behind the wheel. Fearing the worst that an innocent man could go to prison for life for something he may have done, he goes for advice to his friend, Larry Lasker (Kiefer Sutherland) who leads his AA group and is also a lawyer and tells him no jury would believe him, especially with his background. He could get 30 years to life. In the jury room Justin is, at first, the only one of 12 who argues that Sythe might not be guilty, but can he find a way out of this that saves James and himself while still being there for his wife and their baby due imminently?

There are so many twists here in Abrams’ cleverly constructed scenario, and amazingly they are all plausible. If they weren’t this whole souffle could fall, and fall hard. It stays above water. Eastwood always honors the writer and rarely does radical surgery on his film’s screenplays. Here the script has been honed nicely, and Juror #2 has also been exceptionally well cast down to the smallest roles (Geoff Miclat is the Casting Director).

Hoult, who will also be seen this Fall in two other major releases (The Order, Nosferatu), takes a difficult role which often just relies on his facial expressions, but also is fully three dimensional as this about-to-be young father has a severe crisis of moral conscience that threatens to upend his life, his freedom, and his marriage. Collette as the assistant district attorney now running for the top job, is superb as a prosecutor who is certain she has her guy, only to have doubts she may have gotten it wrong. Sutherland has a brief but important role in terms of defining Justin’s moral dilemma, and Messina is excellent as a public defender who actually believes he has a client who didn’t do it despite surface signs that he did. The jury is perfectly cast and play well off each other, with veteran J. K. Simmons once again proving to be a scene stealer as a man who takes matters into his own hands and does his own investigation when the jury starts to divide.

Shot in and around Savannah Georgia where Eastwood made Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, the film looks great and has a Mark Mancina score that nicely accentuates the story and has strong hints of the kinds of scores Eastwood himself has written for his past movies.

Juror #2 , like Conclave which just opened this weekend, proves to be an exceptionally fine entertainment for adult audiences craving something compelling and engrossing, all too rare these days in bringing back that older discerning audience to theatres. Eastwood has delivered Warner Bros. another winner but the studio doesn’t seem to realize its potential as they are only giving this film a “limited release” with what appears, so far at least, to be a minimal marketing effort for an Eastwood film with this kind of cast (reportedly it was originally only going to streaming — arrrrrgh). and that seems a shame. Audiences, the right audiences, given half a chance, would eat this up. Eastwood has made a film directors like Sidney Lumet (a master of the courtroom drama with 12 Angry Men and The Verdict) and Alfred Hitchcock probably would have loved. Sadly they don’t make ’em much like this anymore. You can thank Clint Eastwood for proving they still can. Juror# 2 is one of the best pictures of 2024.

Producers are Eastwood, Tim Moore, Jessica Meier, Adam Goodman and Matt Skiena.

Title: Juror#2

Festival: AFI Fest (Closing Night Film)

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Release Date: November 1, 2024 – Limited

Director: Clint Eastwood

Screenplay: Jonathan Abrams

Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Chris Messina, Keifer Sutherland, J.K. Simmons, Leslie Bibb, Gabe Basso, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough, Adrienne C. Moore, Amy Aquino

Rating: PG13

Running Time: 1 hour and 53 minutes