Age seems to have failed to dampen Clint Eastwood’s passion for making films. At the remarkable age of 94 Juror #2 (Juror number 2) is his 40th film as a director.
Based on a script by Jonathan Abrams, Eastwood tries to bring a freshness, not altogether successfully, to the type of courtroom drama that we’ve seen umpteen times in films throughout the years, 12 Angry Men (1957) being the one that Juror #2 has most in common with.
Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), a family man whose wife is due to give birth any day, is drafted onto a jury where James Michael Sythe (Gabriel Brasso) is on trial for the murder of his partner Kendall Carter (Eastwood’s daughter Francesca). The trial is not long started when Kemp starts to think that the deer he thought he hit during a rainstorm on the night of the murder might not have been a deer but could have been Carter.
After being given some really bad advice by his lawyer (Kiefer Sutherland), and whilst not trying to implicate himself, Kemp tries to convince the other jurors (J.K. Simmons, Leslie Bibb and Cedric Yarbrough) that Sythe is innocent.
Juror #2 reunites Hoult with Toni Collette for the first time since when they both appeared in About A Boy (2002). Collette plays the district attorney responsible for prosecuting Sythe.
Juror #2 is a film not to be taken seriously has some of the plot twists are so off the wall that they verge on the ridiculous. Collette appears to be the only person in town responsible for the investigation of the murder and it takes a big leap of faith to believe that Kemp could end up on the very jury that’s trying someone for the murder of a person he’s hit in his car. These are only two examples but trust me there’s many more.
Juror #2 isn’t by a long shot Eastwoods greatest piece of work but it’s still an enjoyable couple of hour’s entertainment. Even if it is somewhat unbelievable.