In recent years Clint Eastwood strongly revolved around the topic of individual freedom in clash with the system. That’s what “Richard Jewell”, “Sully” and to some extent “The Smuggler” were about. In each of these (so different thematically!) films, Eastwood expressed his libertarian perception of the world. “Juror No. 2” fits into another trend of cinema, which Eastwood also exploited in his extensive filmography. In “Million Dollar Baby” and “Gran Torino” he asked serious ethical and moral questions. In the first case it was about euthanasia, while in the second it was about a sacrifice for an oppressed neighbor.
Nicholas Hoult plays Justin Kemp, who is called to serve as a juror in a murder trial. His wife, Allison (Zoey Deutch), is in the last trimester of a high-risk pregnancy, so the last thing he wants to do is sit in a courtroom. Despite trying to shirk his civic duty, Justin is selected as juror number 2. Now he and eleven other people must decide whether James Sythe (Gabriel Basso) murdered his girlfriend Kendall (Francesca Eastwood). The evidence is strong. James had an argument with Kendall at a bar, which was recorded by witnesses. The girl ran out of the bar and was found dead in the morning.
James claims that he went straight home, which is not believed by ambitious prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette), who is competing with her colleague and public defender Eric (Chris Messina). Justin quickly realizes that he, too, was at the same bar that fateful night. To make matters worse, he could have accidentally hit Kendall with his SUV. He knows he hit something on the rainy night. However, he assumed that it was a deer that had escaped injured. Should he confess? Yes, but he also has a history of drunk driving. His sponsor at AA meetings (Kiefer Sutherland) tells him that no one will believe he wasn’t drunk and he could go to prison for at least 30 years.
“Juror 2” isn’t Eastwood’s first courtroom drama set in Savannah, Georgia. Do you remember “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” (1997) and its ambiguous finale? You will also find a rhyme for it here. There is also “Juror No. 2” a direct reference to “Twelve Angry Men” by Sydney Lumet. Almost the entire jury is convinced of the defendant’s guilt and wants to conclude its deliberations as soon as possible. Someone is in a hurry to get home, someone else has his prejudices against “people like Sythe”, and still another is a slow yes-man. Only one of the “angry” votes against it. This is Justin, who argues that you cannot decide about someone’s life so hastily and without discussion. Justin’s decision is paradoxical, because he is the one who has the greatest interest in ensuring that no one discovers his connection with the accident. However, he has remorse. Or maybe it’s something else? Maybe it’s been playing all along? One of the jurors is a retired policeman (JK Simmons), who begins to buy into the theory that the girl… could have been killed by a driver. Here, Eastwood enters a courtroom thriller.
For me, however, the most interesting thing is Justin’s moral dilemma, which has to put the good of his family and the truth about what happened at stake. Is he ready to stand in the truth? But does relativizing what really happened justify his decision? Today he is a loving husband and in a moment he will be a father who experienced his own tragedy that night. He was a mess and had an accident. Should he lose everything he had painstakingly built? However, the person accused of killing the girl is a gang member, so he is generally guilty in the eyes of society. But can’t a person change? After all, Justin has changed. The film opens with a scene in which Justin leads his wife to the children’s room. It’s a surprise for her, so Allison wears a blindfold. It looks like Themis symbolizing blind justice. “You’re perfect,” she tells Justin happily, seeing how he has renovated the room for their long-awaited child. It is not, as we will find out in the next scenes.
There is a lot of more or less literal metaphor in “Juror No. 2”. The prosecutor, who at some point also has to answer the question whether justice and truth are the same, is named Faith. Her opponent is a man named Justin, who at times sounds like Justice. We also get a close-up of the maxim “In God we trust” engraved in the courtroom, which is part of the code built by the USA. One could laugh at such open symbolism in Jonathan Abrams’ script, were it not for the fact that Eastwood does not provide a clear answer at all.
The director was never a moralist, but he did not avoid talking about moral dilemmas. In fact, he is no stranger to the topic of redemption, which is the key to his masterpiece “Unforgiven”, but also to “Mystic River”. At the same time, Eastwood himself is at the age when life takes stock. But Clint still has a cocky look in his eyes and finally asks: who is so devoid of sin that he would choose to cast the first stone? It is not by accident that spaghetti westerns with Eastwood morally demolished black-and-white films about the Wild West with a sheriff in white and a villain in a black hat. There is also a duel in the final here. Except the hats are gray.
8/10
“Juror No. 2” (Juror #2), dir. Clint Eastwood, USA 2024.