It’s nearly impossible to watch or review Clint Eastwood’s new thriller without harking back to the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men.
And that’s a good thing.
According to user-reviews at IMDb.com, that granddaddy of all courtroom dramas is the sixth-greatest movie ever made. Eastwood’s latest, Juror No. 2, deliberately evokes its beloved forebear — while also adding a heftier plot and a more nuanced ending.
Rapidly rising star Nicholas Hoult (Fury Road, About a Boy, Nosferatu) is superb as Justin Kemp, a journalist and recovering alcoholic who is called for jury duty as his wife nears the end of a “high-risk pregnancy.” Despite qualms about being out of the house for an indeterminate time, Kemp winds up getting tapped in a well-publicized Georgia murder trial.
The case’s prosecutor — played by the peerless Toni Collette — is running for D.A. on a platform keyed against domestic abuse; and as she pursues a man who appears to have murdered his girlfriend on a rainy roadside, Kemp becomes convinced that he has a direct connection to the case. It’s a connection that would bring exoneration to the defendant — but total ruin to the earnest young husband.
He’s not exactly guilty of murder — but he’s going to feel that way as the jury leans heavily toward conviction. Indeed, like Henry Fonda’s memorable character in 12 Angry Men, Kemp emerges as the sole holdout for innocence.
While Eastwood and writer Jonathan Abrams indict jittery jurors who rush to conclusions largely because of their own petty prejudices and priorities, the focus is on Kemp: Should he risk confessing — or can he obviate the potential wreckage simply by persuading his fellow-jurors that there’s reasonable doubt?
This is Abrams’s first movie script, and it’s a doozy. Speaking as someone who’s been on a jury and also testified in a murder trial, I felt he muffed some of the procedural matters. But on the other hand, his dialog is solid and his characters are perfectly believable, aided by terrific performances across the board — including a great-as-ever J. K. Simmons. Best of all, he’s got a few major plot developments up his sleeve — as shown especially by the fact that the trial ends after only a third of the movie; but the story just keeps getting more and more compelling.
As director, you can count on Eastwood to stay out of the way, letting the script and actors do their own work. So the excellent music and cinematography are blissfully unobtrusive; and some clever editing through the case’s opening and closing statements sidesteps the potentially staid and stagey nature of such scenes.
Meanwhile, the script’s great strength is the way it slowly builds parallels between Kemp and the accused — a motif that reaches its apex in a flawless final scene between Collette and Hoult.
One keeps wanting Kemp to leap up and shout out the truth. Naturally I won’t reveal whether he does so — but the ending, with subtle references to trusting divine providence, goes right where it has to; among other things, it suggests after all the debate we’ve heard in this case, that people really can change.
Despite strong reviews, the film played in only 35 theaters near the end of last year. It is currently streaming on select platforms.