Review: Juror No. 2

Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Written by: Jonathan Abrams

Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J. K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough

Rating: [2/5]

As with many things, the justice system at its core has the intention to judge someone in the fairest way possible. They get a jury of their peers who know nothing about the case to listen solely to the facts presented and judge whether beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant committed the alleged crime. However, complications get in the way that hamper the system such as when a juror has more involvement in the case than they realized leading to the moral dilemma of Juror #2. 

Selected for jury duty for a case involving murder, Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) reports to his post. When listening to the case, some of the information begins to sound familiar to him to where he begins to piece together that he was near the location of the alleged murder and perhaps may have played a hand in what actually occurred. 

Bringing in a killer premise, Juror #2 presents such a fun hypothetical process where Justin begins to question elements of the case not because of the evidence provided but rather because he may know the truth. That truth, however, could potentially lead to him on the other side of the courtroom. Therefore, he holds the very life of the man who could potentially go down for something he did not do at the risk of his own well-being. A terrible dilemma for him but a wonderful concept for a film that we get to enjoy. 

One of the more integral elements of this film comes from the ambiguity of the case where what transpired occurred on a rainy night. Therefore, Justin’s very involvement does not have 100% clarity in his own mind of whether the defendant is guilty or his involvement had any real impact. We have no straightforward answer and thankfully Clint Eastwood plays into the murkiness of this situation, which further adds to the entertainment value of the film. 

With all that said, while Juror #2 sets up everything well to see how Justin reacts to this personal dilemma on his hands, the way the plot progresses does everything possible to make this proceeding ridiculous. Now, as someone who has never stepped foot in a courtroom in any capacity, I cannot speak with conviction about what serves as a realistic portrayal of this process. Of course when telling a fictional tale, one does not need to remain ardently connected to reality but certain decisions made by this jury blew my mind away. No circumstance put the nail in the coffin more than when the jurors requested that in order to make their decision they wanted to go to the crime scene. A decision that makes no logical sense as if it matters in the slightest to walk through a road months later as if it could possibly inform anything. Scenes such as this one shined a light at the major issue plaguing this film, which is that it continuously runs in circles. It has this fantastic premise and the more it wants Justin to ruminate on his possible guilt it continues to tack on silly ways that this jury cannot come to a decision. 

This happened aplenty in the jury deliberations where they would continuously and tediously argue over the same arguments that just got tiring. At a certain point as a juror I would have just voted for whatever had the likeliest outcomes as opposed to going through the same arguments over and over again. It demonstrates that either there was not enough meat on the bone for their film as a whole or Eastwood just wanted to pad its runtime for some reason. The compelling elements began to diminish as we got to the second and third act to the point where I just wished for the film to end and it just kept going. How we went from the exceptional promise of the first act to the precipitous fall of the rest of the film displays this film’s complete implosion. 

Plenty of respect for Clint Eastwood still banging out films and while Juror #2 had the potential to sit highly amongst his most acclaimed films but frankly it just falls apart. By the time we get to the jury deliberations, there should be some inner turmoil for Justin as he decides on which side of the fence he will sit but the way it continues to drag on and on completely zapped all the enjoyment this film initially brought. An unfortunate resolution but I still appreciate the thought exercise this film evoked.