The most recent, and perhaps final, film from iconic director Clint Eastwood has at last arrived on streaming services. Though “Juror #2” came out on Nov. 1, it did so in fewer than 50 theaters nationwide ––– only on Dec. 20 was the film made available to widespread audiences on Max.
At its surface, Eastwood’s newest presents as a very traditional trial thriller — magazine writer and generally good guy Justin Kemp, played by Nicholas Hoult, is a reluctant jury member for a murder trial in Savannah, Ga. The crime is straightforward — girlfriend and boyfriend have a few drinks, girlfriend and boyfriend have a fight, girlfriend is found dead under a bridge.
The twist, however, emerges through flashbacks shown as early as the opening courtroom statements, which are delivered by Toni Collette as a power suit-sporting prosecutor and Chris Messina as an amiable but amateur public defender. Through these recollections, it is revealed that not only was Justin at the same bar the night that the crime was committed, he drove down the same road and might even have hit something.
What ensues is a twisty and twisted exploration of right and wrong. The film’s first half is very straightforward, but the real drama begins when its action migrates from the courtroom to the deliberation room, where — much like in “12 Angry Men” or “Runaway Jury” — Justin and his fellow jurors must reach a verdict amidst varied opinions. Without straying too far into spoiler territory, it is worth noting that the film concludes with one of the most compelling cuts to black in recent cinema, proving that even at age 94, Eastwood has still got it.
Where it could just coast as a clear-cut courtroom drama, “Juror #2” highlights the moral weight of its central dilemma in large part thanks to its central performances. Hoult, in the midst of quite a run, is compelling in his portrayal of a man steadily buckling under the weight of his conscience. He is assisted by a strong supporting cast, including J.K. Simmons and Cedric Yarbrough as jurors with their own suspicions and Kiefer Sutherland as Justin’s AA sponsor, who also happens to be a lawyer.
That being said, though the performances make the film very good, the plot fails to make it exceptional — the pacing is too slow, too self-conscious of taking risks, and Eastwood shows his hand too quickly to maintain suspense without such stakes.
But while “Juror #2” may not be a five-star masterpiece, it is certainly on par with its ideological contemporaries — namely, the legal dramas, comedies and thrillers that throughout the 1990s and even into the 2000s seemed just about inescapable. Among the sort of mid-budget, star-driven, crowd-pleasing popcorn flick that once defined Hollywood, there exist a great number of movies about lawyers, about the fight between good and evil, about justice and injustice and all the gray area that lies in between.
Many were adapted from novels by John Grisham — a champion of the legal genre — and as such follow the same mold, of an idealistic lawyer who gets caught up in something bigger than themself. From an assassination of two Supreme Court justices to a Code Red on a Cuban naval base to a coverup by a crooked law firm, their conspiracies are as varied and extreme as they are par for the course. But whether adapted from Grisham novels, inspired by real-life events or created as original stories, the undercurrent of these legal dramas was the same ––– that justice could, and would, prevail over corruption.
These are the performances that bring viewers back, to clips or to cable broadcasts, time and time again — the climactic confrontation from “A Few Good Men,” for example, has over 11 million views on YouTube. And not only have these films had legs on modern networks, but even at the time of their theatrical releases — from 1990 to 1999, legal dramas budgeted in the $40 million dollar range were grossing upwards of $100 million at the global box office.
The success of these films can also be seen in their capacity not only to draw in audiences, but to draw in stars. From Tom Cruise to Julia Roberts to Denzel Washington, these were the movies that movie stars wanted, because inherent to a courtroom showdown is a compelling showcase of stardom and star power.
The consistent success and continued enjoyment of this genre, then, makes its near-complete disappearance from the modern media cycle all the more bizarre. It is not that audiences have lost interest in the legal genre — in fact, quite the opposite, as the long-running legal series “Suits” smashed records to become the most-streamed show in 2023.
Yet studios seem to have lost interest in producing such pieces, as the past decade has witnessed the steady decline of the mid-budget adult drama in favor of higher cost, higher revenue endeavors that often, though not always, end up centered around superheroes. The paradigm shift towards a “go big or go home” mindset serves in turn to cast any film that does not fit this mold as an indie, thereby facilitating the near-complete disappearance of the mid-budget adult-oriented motion picture, and with it the legal genre.
This disappearance, or at least increasing insignificance, is exemplified by the curious case of “Juror #2,” a very conventional film that was nonetheless robbed of its theatrical prospects and instead relegated to disappear among the masses of movies available on streaming. The decision on behalf of Warner Brothers to limit its theatrical release not only set back this very article some two months but also sparked irritation and indignance towards the studio and its CEO David Zaslav.
The company’s choice also speaks to a larger trend toward direct-to-streaming distribution, one with the unfortunate consequence that that “Juror #2” must find its audience solely among those who subscribe to Max or are willing to shell out $9.99 for a premium rental on Amazon Prime.
That being said, there also remains hope. 2023 saw a return of the legal genre with “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Burial.” The former received five nominations at the 96th Academy Awards — calling back to an era when films like these would even be nominated for the highest honor in cinema –– with writer-director Justine Triet taking home the trophy for Original Screenplay. The latter, though not an awards contender, is charming and consistently entertaining while also wielding some intense star power with Academy Award winners Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones.
Both of these films were received positively by critics and audiences alike, proving that there remains love for the legal genre and hope for the mid-budget movie, despite what studios may think. And while Eastwood’s latest may not be a contender in the 2025 Best Picture race, it is certainly cognisant of the context that has come before it — of the love that exists for the legal genre.
Ultimately, just as “Juror #2” falls short in its reluctance to take risks, so do studios — in their unwillingness to produce conventional, crowd-pleasing, mid-budget dramas. The power of film and the business of filmmaking do not have to be incompatible.
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