Times and values have changed. Movies seek more these days to entertain with gimmicks and plots that can't withstand even slight analysis. John Grisham, author of the novel on which "Runaway Jury" is based, is a bestselling and very smart lawyer who caters to a big crowd demanding swift-paced confrontations between Light and Darkness and this Gary Fleder directed part courtroom drama, part caper flick will satisfy many.
The film begins with a mass murder devoid of rational motivation, leaving grief stricken family members in the wake of a deranged gunman's foray through high rise offices. As the TV drama "Law & Order" promises, this too is "ripped from the headlines," the kind we see all too often.
Two years after eleven fell dead to a shooter's rage, a civil action is set to go to trial in New Orleans. The widow of a victim is seeking a recovery from the manufacturer of the gun used in the mass slayings. Of course she wants more than a big judgment - she wants justice in the form of crippling the gun manufacturers, arraigned in the script for launching a wave of deadly weapons aimed at a market of, primarily, evildoers and head cases.
Dustin Hoffman is plaintiff's counsel, Wendell Rohr, and he performs with a Big Easy accent inflected with years of living in Manhattan. He is committed, earnest, with no hint of a personal life. Gene Hackman inhabits the role of jury selection guru Rankin Fitch, a big time operator who will either stoop down to or rise up to any measure necessary to buy a verdict favoring the one-dimensional gun company executives who pay him to protect their industry. As expected, Hackman is powerful and effective, his trademark snarl punctuating his chronic impatience and frequent outbursts of inflated ego.
Rachel Weisz is the wild card threatening Hackman's success as she, playing Marlee (no last name), increasingly rankles Rankin with threats to bring the jury over to the plaintiff's side. How and why she does this is a developing story line I certainly won't reveal. She's a terrific actress who breathes life into her role. Doesn't hurt that's she beautiful. And you'd never know she's English.
I did enjoy Bruce Mc Gill, a veteran character actor, as the trial judge. That kind of jurist I know from my own life in court!
For Grisham, as for the movie's director and cast, the complexities of a major lawsuit are of no interest (think of "A Civil Action" for the cinematic opposite). Where "Twelve Angry Men" zoomed claustrophobically into the drama of a jury deliberation (virtually the entire film was shot in one room), here the interaction of jurors is superficial, almost cartoonish, while homage is placed at the altar of the filmmaker's need to show technology in the service of both good and evil. (I can imagine what real jury selection consultants, competent and ethical in the main, will think about the portrayals here.)
"Runaway Jury" won't tell you much about civil litigation or the very real and complex issues of guns in America. There's a fair amount of preachy but rather thin dialogue about guns with a perfunctory reference to the Second Amendment, a constitutional provision that many defend but few have actually studied.
In three decades of civil law practice I have never tried to buy a juror. But if Rachel Weisz asked me to do it...
6/10.
The film begins with a mass murder devoid of rational motivation, leaving grief stricken family members in the wake of a deranged gunman's foray through high rise offices. As the TV drama "Law & Order" promises, this too is "ripped from the headlines," the kind we see all too often.
Two years after eleven fell dead to a shooter's rage, a civil action is set to go to trial in New Orleans. The widow of a victim is seeking a recovery from the manufacturer of the gun used in the mass slayings. Of course she wants more than a big judgment - she wants justice in the form of crippling the gun manufacturers, arraigned in the script for launching a wave of deadly weapons aimed at a market of, primarily, evildoers and head cases.
Dustin Hoffman is plaintiff's counsel, Wendell Rohr, and he performs with a Big Easy accent inflected with years of living in Manhattan. He is committed, earnest, with no hint of a personal life. Gene Hackman inhabits the role of jury selection guru Rankin Fitch, a big time operator who will either stoop down to or rise up to any measure necessary to buy a verdict favoring the one-dimensional gun company executives who pay him to protect their industry. As expected, Hackman is powerful and effective, his trademark snarl punctuating his chronic impatience and frequent outbursts of inflated ego.
Rachel Weisz is the wild card threatening Hackman's success as she, playing Marlee (no last name), increasingly rankles Rankin with threats to bring the jury over to the plaintiff's side. How and why she does this is a developing story line I certainly won't reveal. She's a terrific actress who breathes life into her role. Doesn't hurt that's she beautiful. And you'd never know she's English.
I did enjoy Bruce Mc Gill, a veteran character actor, as the trial judge. That kind of jurist I know from my own life in court!
For Grisham, as for the movie's director and cast, the complexities of a major lawsuit are of no interest (think of "A Civil Action" for the cinematic opposite). Where "Twelve Angry Men" zoomed claustrophobically into the drama of a jury deliberation (virtually the entire film was shot in one room), here the interaction of jurors is superficial, almost cartoonish, while homage is placed at the altar of the filmmaker's need to show technology in the service of both good and evil. (I can imagine what real jury selection consultants, competent and ethical in the main, will think about the portrayals here.)
"Runaway Jury" won't tell you much about civil litigation or the very real and complex issues of guns in America. There's a fair amount of preachy but rather thin dialogue about guns with a perfunctory reference to the Second Amendment, a constitutional provision that many defend but few have actually studied.
In three decades of civil law practice I have never tried to buy a juror. But if Rachel Weisz asked me to do it...
6/10.