Courtroom dramas don't get more basic than Juror #2, the latest feature from director Clint Eastwood. A crime is committed, the case is argued in court, and a jury grapples with a verdict.
Justin (Nicholas Hoult), a magazine writer, is first seen showing a new nursery room to his pregnant wife Allison (Zoey Deutch). When he is summoned to jury duty, Justin tries to get out of serving. Despite his wife's fragile health, he is assigned to a murder case.
Kendall's (Francesca Eastwood) body was discovered in a creek after she was seen arguing in a bar with her boyfriend, James Sythe (Gabe Basso). The loud, argumentative Sythe is a perfect suspect, unable to explain his actions or justify his whereabouts.
It looks like a cut-and-dried case to prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette), who needs a conviction to win her election campaign. Public defender Erik Resnick (Chris Messina) doesn't have the resources to mount a strong case for Sythe.
Only Justin knows more than he reveals. He was at the bar the night Kendall died, and as flashbacks reveal, he may have been the driver in the accident that killed her. A recovering alcoholic, he turns to his AA sponsor Larry (Kiefer Sutherland), a lawyer who says Justin could be facing 30 years in jail for vehicular homicide.
Should Justin risk his family and freedom by exonerating Sythe? At first, he is the only juror to vote to acquit, but other skeptics join in, including former cop Harold (J.K. Simmons). New evidence is uncovered, all of which points to Justin and away from Sythe.
While Juror #2 may not seem that far from a typical episode of Law and Order, Eastwood asks a lot from his viewers. We know what happens early on. There are no last-minute revelations, no surprise witnesses, no sudden confessions. Absolutely no one in the movie is satisfied with what happens.
Jonathan Abrams' first-rate script draws from 12 Angry Men and writers like John Grisham and Scott Turow, but Eastwood is after something different here. The plots to movies like American Sniper and Million Dollar Baby circle around insoluble moral puzzles. Unforgiven asks if we are defined by our flaws. "I'm not that guy anymore, I changed," Sythe says on the stand here, echoing William Munny's insistence that he's no longer a killer.
Similarly, Juror #2 essentially boils down to: what if all your choices are bad ones? It's also a testament to classic filmmaking. When a juror drops a rock into a river, Eastwood is content with the splash--no crane shots or zooms, no swelling orchestral score.
Unceremoniously dumped by Warner Bros. into 50 or so US theaters, the film nevertheless deserves to be seen in theaters. Eastwood's remarkable streak of thoughtful, rigorous dramas is unparalleled in recent cinema.
Warners may please its shareholders by burying Juror #2. It's not clear that anyone weaned on comic-book movies wants to see challenging stories told in a precise, no-nonsense style. But it would be a shame to miss something this well-made.
The film opens in limited release Friday, November 1, via Warner Bros. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes.