“Juror #2” Review: Clint’s Critical Eye is as Sharp as Ever

In Eastwood’s latest, Nicholas Hoult has to lie his way through a seemingly impenetrable system.

To a viewer admittedly unexperienced with Clint Eastwood’s filmography, the gruff-voiced director of 94 seems an American flag personified. An icon of the unexplored west and face of Patriotic independence, Eastwood’s tight-lipped persona is that of the American mythical, and as such, I couldn’t be more delighted to see someone seemingly representative of uninterrupted “truth and justice for all” to be so vehemently angry at a system that has only continued to prove its undeniable corruption.

Juror #2 stars Nicholas Hoult as Justin, a convincing family man both to the audience who immediately warms to Hoult’s charismatic and endearing persona, as well as the remainder of the jury he finds himself stuck on mere days away from his child’s expected birth. The tragic backstory is revealed at a tense pace which demonstrates a mastery of pacing on Eastwood’s part: Justin is a recovering alcoholic whose urges are motivated by memories the couple’s multiple miscarriages, properly contextualizing the significance to a well disguised ticking time clock in the form of his wife’s pregnancy. This is all established alongside introducing multiple side characters, including the remainder of the jury and Toni Collette as a corruptible D.A. candidate, both parties deepening the thematic web at the films core by serving as different refractions of the film’s ultimate criticism. Then there is the case itself, where Justin is revealed to be the unknowing guilty party in a hit-and-run the court has mistakingly labeled as a murder, with the victim’s boyfriend at the center.

That is to say, the film has moving parts that need to be quickly established to enter the main narrative. While some may find Eastwood’s treatment of periphery information to be rushed, I took the film’s pace to be efficient. When watching Juror #2, one feels secure in Eastwood’s direction because of its clear intentionality. Each shot, every cut feels purposeful, consistently adding new elements to the story that increase narrative tension, or expand the breadth of ideas the film attempts to cover. As a result the cinematography, while not necessarily the most stylish, is undeniably informative and effective. Specific images compose symbols of justice ironically against backstabbing members of a seemingly singular case, and this visual thematic development is aided by the narrative’s character web that communicate the inevitable subjectivity in an “objective” legal system.

Together, the edit, script, and cinematography combine to organize the story’s sequences in such a way for maximum effectiveness. Juror #2 would fail to generate the equivalent tension and interest that it does presently if it were told linearly - the story now instead cut and reordered to make one question a seemingly innocent protagonist. In it’s construction, Juror #2 thus explores how in an objective system, there is room to determine which “truth” is most moral to concretize as reality for how many potential scenarios the film provides viewers to question.

With all of its strengths, Juror #2 is a more than capable and efficient courtroom drama that cleverly critiques the legal system…up until its end. The film manages to navigate its themes with at least some sense of subtlety - in fact, Juror #2 is at its weakest when it provides the audience with too much. An overly sentimental score makes emotional moments red flags one can’t help but notice instead of effective understated moments of intimacy. Thematic declarations in dialogue at times match characters overt representations as different perspectives on the film’s ideological interests. The film betrays itself the most in its final scene, where instead of opting for an ambiguous conclusion that leaves both characters questioning their morality, it confuses silence and self-seriousness for satisfying answers.

Despite ending in a way that utterly deflates the cinematic nuance that came prior, Juror #2 remains an effectively tight court-room drama that impresses on its own, but becomes somewhat magical when thinking about the man behind the camera, somehow managing to direct a film that is equally fueled by passion for the craft and anger at a system that falls victim to the camera’s damning lens.