Juror #2 Review: At 94, Clint Eastwood's Nicholas Hoult film feels as fresh as his first

3.5/5

Juror #2 Review: Plot - A recovering alcoholic, journalist Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult), is summoned by the Georgia court and ordered to serve as a jury in a murder case. Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) is allegedly killed by her boyfriend, James Michael Sythe (Gabriel Basso). But Kemp is expecting a baby with his wife, who is battling a difficult pregnancy. However, the court chooses him to be on the jury panel because he is the correct candidate to be on this case. Little does this entire ecosystem know that the man they presume is pristine and non-consequential is hiding a secret that can turn this entire world upside down, changing the course of everything that is happening.

Juror #2 Review: Analysis

How does a man five years into this profession scale the height of the caliber of a filmmaker who has been relevant and working double his age? While I have my problems with Juror #2, the film and that last frame, full of Clint Eastwood’s urge to make films till his last frame, make me forget everything and just watch an artist obsessing over his art without caring about the fact that any frame could be his last. That dedication and love for cinema that shines in Juror #2 is what makes this movie what it is. Clint Eastwood is 94, six years away from 100. Yet he is here making a film as fresh as his first while the world grapples with the problem of bringing back novelty, and that is what makes the 12 Angry Men-esque film a winner.

Clint Eastwood movies are about hunger—the hunger for more, the urge to know what happened after, what happened before, and why he cut the shot so abruptly without letting us in completely. His cinema is about the immersive feeling that not many films can bring to you like his. Even Juror #2, which follows his last not-so-celebrated Cry Macho. Very rarely do I talk about the climax first and the complete film later, and this is one of those exceptions. The climax of Juror #2 is where most of Eastwood exists. After you have lived through a story of a man who came on the screen as a clean canvas only to be painted in grey, that too of the darkest order, he takes you to a climax where an exceptional Nicholas Hoult is shocked, and the frame cuts. The Clint Eastwood magic takes over the screen, and once again the filmmaker has left you with curiosity and an open end that he himself will never decode for you.

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Attached to that brilliant climax is a screenplay that is delicious for the most part of it. Written by Jonathan A. Abrams and directed by Clint Eastwood, Juror #2 shapes Justin Kemp, a former alcoholic who is now on his journey to complete sobriety. He is a caring husband, a curious father waiting for his baby to come into this world, and a man who is trusted by the court to be the best-suited juror on a murder trial where a man is about to be imprisoned for life. So he is the ‘ideal man’ you would want to marry. But wait, this is Clint Eastwood’s world, and nothing is that black or white here. As the trial continues and the details of the night of the murder are introduced, Eastwood begins his magic by giving us flashbacks of Kemp, to whom the incident feels familiar. And here you go—he was there, on ground zero when the victim lost her life.

So now the dissection begins regarding what Kemp was doing there. What exactly motivated him to be in a bar while he was going sober? Clint Eastwood explores all of that but not in the traditional way. He leaves the job of building Justin in your head. Now you could look at this man as a poor soul stuck in a situation or a person who knows it all but cannot sacrifice himself for a stranger. Meanwhile, Clint and Jonathan begin unfolding their story to the jurors. The way the mind games begin amongst this bunch of jurors is so exciting because one random thought and all of it is back to zero. In the center is Justin, who is trying to mislead the investigation because he wants to save the alleged murderer.

Juror #2 gets delicious right here because there is so much going on. There are over 10 people firing bullets in all the wrong directions and only one who knows it all. But at one point, it also kind of tones down the drama of the film which could have been notches higher if complexities were multiplied. A retired cop who is also a juror tries to investigate the case himself and is removed from the panel. Where does he disappear? Why did he not continue his research? Or maybe he now knows the truth? Also, Juror #2 also feels rushed in the third act, only for the brilliant climax to compensate for it.

Nicholas Hoult is brilliant as Justin Kemp. He presents himself as a clean canvas, which the filmmaker can paint only, and you can see it. The anxiety taking over, the guilt making him do things—all of it just lands so well. The rest of the cast does their job to perfection.

Juror #2 Review: Final Verdict

If a filmmaker of Clint Eastwood’s stature is inviting you to watch a film that he made at 94, you have no reason to not obey. Don’t be Warner Bros. Juror #2 is worth your time and patience because there is so much USP magic of the filmmaker packed in there.

Juror #2 is currently available on TVOD on BookMyShow Stream. Stay tuned to OTTplay for more information on this and everything else from the world of streaming and films.

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