Start the week with a film: Clint Eastwood’s ‘Juror #2’ makes a solid case for itself

In Clint Eastwood’s 40th film, restraint is all around. The acting is subdued. The writing is stripped of flourishes. The staging is as plain as a TV show. If Juror #2 is potentially 94-year-old Clint Eastwood’s last movie, there is neither fuss nor a sense of self-importance.

Juror #2 has the ‘let’s just get on with it’ quality that has characterised Eastwood’s movies in recent years. Eastwood relies on a compelling script by Jonathan Abrams and an efficient cast that includes Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette and Chris Messina. The legal drama has a neat premise too: a juror begins to wonder if he is responsible for the crime that has been pinned on the man he is supposed to convict.

Justin (Nicholas Hoult) is a recovering alcoholic who’s expecting a child with his wife Allison (Zoey Deutch). After being called up to jury duty, Justin is wracked by doubt over whether James (Gabriel Basso) actually killed his girlfriend after a drunken brawl. Did James push his lover into a ditch – or was Justin who ran over her by mistake?

Public prosecutor Faith (Toni Collette) wants to win the case since it will boost her chances of winning a district attorney election. Defence lawyer Eric (Chris Messina) is convinced of his client’s innocence. The jury deliberations are not as clear-cut as Faith hoped they would be.

Debate – one of the cornerstones of the judicial process – creeps into the discussions, making Justin as well as the other jurors see James’s pre-decided culpability in a new light. Justin is conflicted between doing what is right for the abstract cause of justice and protecting himself and his family.

The film can be rented from Prime Video, Apple TV+, YouTube Movies and Google Play. Eastwood’s unvarnished style, while sometimes underplaying the extent of Justin’s dilemma, is a welcome departure from typically aggressive and overly dramatised legal thrillers.

Eastwood commands attention over 114 minutes by moving his camera from one character to another, maintaining the suspense over Justin’s fate, and eschewing distracting sub-plots. Juror #2 runs in the opposite direction of flashiness, delivering a film that is unfussy, engrossing and perfectly suited for post-prandial consumption.