‘Juror #2’ Review: An Endearingly Old-Fashioned Film

“Juror #2” is the perfect dad movie. In this film, Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is assigned jury duty for a murder case and realizes that he has more skin in the game than he originally expected. It has all of the hallmarks of a typical courtroom thriller — an interesting dilemma, a stacked cast, and Clint Eastwood in the director chair. The film leans into these elements, taking an old-fashioned and simple approach to developing its plot. This calm — if somewhat predictable — aesthetic makes “Juror #2” feel endearing and classic. Yet, the film is held back from achieving the greatness and enjoyability of its genre’s predecessors by its uncreative visual identity and dragging pace.

The movie is steeped in anxiety due to the moral dilemma that its main character, Justin, must grapple with. He knows more about the case that he is deciding upon than he wishes to bring to light, but still wants to help the falsely accused murderer attain justice. The creative script, written by Jonathan Abrams, is the movie’s greatest strength, as it inherently forces the audience to consider how they would act in Kemp’s situation. The stakes grow higher and higher as the plot develops, never letting the moral questions grow stale. This mental fodder makes the film a perfect conversation starter once the end credits roll.

Unfortunately, the anxiety and moral questions that swirl in the plot of “Juror #2” are accompanied by mind-numbingly bland cinematography. The courtroom genre has been used again and again in cinema and viewers are accustomed to the gleaming wood and sedentary figures that come with such a setting. The film doesn’t try to make the courtroom more dynamic and repeatedly sticks to stale, static back-and-forth shots.

The director of photography (Yves Bélanger) could have tried to put audiences into the racing mental state of Justin, but instead, chose to position viewers as silent, bored observers as Justin internally processes the film’s events in a plain, stably rendered courtroom. Perhaps this is a statement about the chaos that can occur behind calm facades, but the safe cinematography comes across as lazy. There was an attempt to make Justin’s personal life, which is filled with diffused natural light, contrast against his guilty secret, which occurred on a stormy evening, but this choice didn’t come across as unique. With so much food for thought, audiences may be hungry for eye candy and find themselves disappointed.

Additionally, the plot is slow-paced and filled with repetition. The film is almost two hours long and could easily be shaved down to 90 minutes. In the first 15 minutes or so, there is a painfully slow setup of Justin’s personal life that prevents viewers from becoming invested right away. We are offered a glimpse into Justin’s past and the information that he keeps from other characters, but the film brings us back to these moments repeatedly without notable development in each flashback.

Scenes with the deliberating jury feel like copies of one another, with little changes from day to day, and the most exciting jury decision is kept off-screen. Perhaps the film could have focused on Justin dealing with the mental toll alone instead of having him vocalize his attempts to protect the accused from his fellow jurors. Understanding that less is more is essential to any tight script, but “Juror #2” misses the mark.

Clint Eastwood keeps this film — which may be his last — endearingly old-fashioned, with a plot that deeply reflects on justice and moral responsibility. Yet, the movie’s visual aspects are simply serviceable and fail to elevate its strengths. This movie is a perfect dad-watch, a movie that feels ostensibly classic and thought-provoking. Ultimately, though, the film’s technical aspects may leave the viewer wishing for something more.

—Staff writer Hannah E. Gadway can be reached at hannah.gadway@thecrimson.com.