Review of Runaway Jury (2003) by Henrik S — 27 Oct 2010

It stars out as a promising crime thriller with a solid cast of 90ies superstars past their heyday. The first twist actually surprised me and I was impressed that the movie did not go down the road of all similar movies I have seen. Alas, in the end,the grittiness is sacrificed for a soft-hearted, Hollywood ending and somehow all that happened in the film beforehand does not seem to influence the outcome at all, which left me a bit confused and dazzled, not to say unsatisfied.

Still, for what it's worth and as long as it maintains the suspense (until the last 20 minutes) this is a solid court-room drama with a great cast. Of course, as usual in most American movies, the female actresses are just decoration but we are used to that aren't we ? Joan Cusack is convincing and I would have preferred for his character to keep his aces up the sleeves for a bit longer because he was delightfully hard to read before the script spoiled it all. Hackman and Hoffman do what they do best and play the grumpy villain and jewish Mr.nice guy respectively. These were the days when Jeremy Piven was still trying to be an actor, it is now 7 vears on and he gave up by now.

All in all the the movie stars out good and becomes really interesting towards the first third but it sticks to the formula from there which is shame.

If you like courtroom dramas in the spirit of nineties sleeper hits (A few good men etc.), like your Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman, you will enjoy this very much. I am not going into how realistic this movie is, one of the first scenes has you throw your common sense out of the window, but what the heck, it's Hollywood after all.

HX.