‘Juror #2’ Review: Judged, Jury and Executioner

Is justice always the truth?

That is what Clint Eastwood’s latest directorial venture Juror #2 makes you question.

Lady Justice stands with her head held high, scales in one hand and sword in the other. Her eyes blindfolded, whether it shows impartiality or is meant to denote that she’s blind to the injustice before her is up to interpretation. The innocence or guilt of the defendant is to be determined solely based on the evidence that is presented in court.

Initially slated to be a direct-to-streaming film, Juror #2 saw a very limited release from Warner Bros. in theaters across the U.S. this month. To be screened in about 50 theaters, Juror #2 made it’s way on to the screen very, very quietly and without much fanfare. Post-pandemic, studios are hesitant to bankroll films that aren’t going to appeal to a more mainstream audience. Now that DVDs are obsolete, the revenue comes in only from the cinema-going crowd. The budget may not see profits which prompts studios to immediately opt for a streaming platform. Since Eastwood’s last feature Cry Macho (2021)bombed at the box office, (it made only $16.5 million globally against a $33 million production budget), WB is probably hesitant to take that risk. Fame is fickle and studios often forget that here’s a successful director who made critically acclaimed box office hits like Million Dollar Baby (2004), Gran Torino (2008) and Mystic River (2003).

That said, Juror #2 is an absorbing courtroom drama where you don’t question who the perpetrator is, rather you wrestle with the question of whether he really deserves to be punished for it.

Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), recovering alcoholic, journalist and soon father-to-be is unexpectedly summoned for jury duty, which he tries, unsuccessfully to wriggle out of. It is only while listening to the evidence produced in the courtroom that he realizes that the case may be too close home for comfort. From then as the case builds up, it is a cat-and-mouse game that Kemp plays with not only the jury, justice, prosecutor, defendant but also his own conscience.

Nearly a year ago, on a rather dark and stormy night, Kemp hits a deer on the way home from the local bar Rowdy’s Hideaway (seemingly no relation to but rather a callback to Rowdy Yates played by Eastwood in the series Rawhide). Kemp thinks nothing of it and the memories of the incident wash away like rain down a storm drain. Only it wasn’t a deer, but rather a two-legged human girl that Kemp has mistaken for a deer. The very same girl who is currently gruesomely displayed on a PowerPoint presentation in the court.

Yikes.

When you know you’re guilty of a crime that you were not even aware you committed, should you really do the right thing and take the fall? Especially considering the fact that it is not entirely out of the question for the currently accused party (the dead girl’s boyfriend, James Sythe, played by Gabriel Basso) to have committed it.

You’d be doing the world a favor right? Right?

Those who witnessed the ugly fracas at the bar insist that James, who is definitely not a nice man to know, is guilty. Supposed eyewitness accounts place him in the scene of the crime. The evidence seems flaky yet concrete at the same time. The impending punishment James Sythe faces hangs like a dagger above both his and Justin’s head.

From here the film dissolves into an amalgamation of 12 Angry Men interspersed with a series of flashbacks of Kemp on that fateful night. Unlike Henry Fonda, Kemp needs to steer the direction of the verdict to ‘not guilty’ while simultaneously making sure the needle of suspicion does not point in his direction. Easier said than done as Kemp is as conspicuous as a brightly lit neon sign that says: ‘I’VE GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE’. Between the throwing up, the anguished crying, the constant nail biting and skittery rabbit-like movements, Kemp struggles to hold himself together.

It doesn’t help that, in the process of swaying the jury’s verdict, Kemp is inadvertently further incriminating himself.

Representing the Assistant District Attorney, and gunning for DA is Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette). With her election riding on her success rate and the case being high profile, Killebrew is determined to win. But as she digs deeper and deeper into the evidence, something just doesn’t add up. Killebrew with her own internal tug of war wonders, is the price of victory worth the cost of justice? Is it worth betraying one’s principles?

So now the stakes are up high both in and out of the courtroom. On the scales of justice, the life of two men precariously hang in balance. What is the price of a single man’s life?

On one side of the scale, we have a reformed alcoholic, devout family man and supposedly model upstanding citizen. On the other, we have a problematic individual with a history of violence and shady underground connections. One is guilty but is letting him go scot-free the lesser evil?

Juror #2 also serves as a reunion of sorts for Collette and Hoult who had played mother and son 22 years earlier in About A Boy (2002).  By the end of the film, as the scales of justice tip to one side and the sword enacts its punishment, it really feels like Hoult should begin to sing “Killing Me Softly” to his erstwhile mum, just as he did all those years ago.