Juror No. 2, a little legal thriller, but devilishly Eastwoodian [critique]

What if it was the last? Regardless, this trial film still has something to delight Clint Eastwood fans.

Justin (Nicholas Hoult) is a good young man in all respects. One day, he finds himself a jury in a highly publicized murder case. The accused, James (Gabriel Basso), is known to be a violent man. He allegedly killed Kendall, his partner, after an argument in a bar one rainy evening. For prosecutor Faith (Collette), it's an ideal case. The culprit has been found, and she intends to use this trial to boost her electoral campaign.

Problem: the more Justin listens to the testimonies, the more complicated it becomes: the evening of the murder, he was in the bar in question and on his way home, he hit something that he took for a deer. What if it was Kendall?

Juror No. 2: Why is Clint Eastwood's latest film being released in theaters on the sly?

Fun rereading of 12 angry men and a whole part of the American film by Fritz Lang (The incredible truth in mind) Juror n°2 is a courtroom drama which hides a twist. While all the jurors are convinced that James is guilty, Justin, consumed by doubt, tries to gain time. What recently happened that evening? Should he have James exonerated? Abandon your family and your planned life for justice? This is the moral and totally Eastwoodian crux of the film. More than ever, at 94 years old, Clint Eastwood remains faithful to its themes and its style, dry and without embellishment. His character's dilemma serves as a compass and to embody it, no tricks.

Eastwood plays on a very economical register (sometimes flirting with a cushy television style) and he is content to highlight the pale and anguished face of Nicholas Hoult or the energy of Toni Collette (the two actors find themselves face to face 20 years After About a boy). The script is not free from flaws (characters abandoned along the way or resolution of a plot with a quick Google search…) and as has often been the case for several years with Clint, everything works in a mixture of simplicity and candor that some will accuse of naivety while others prefer to answer “freedom!”. The fact remains that Eastwood has this very personal way of twisting and turning the American myth and working on it to the end.

Juror n°2 remains endearing. For one main reason: its languid pace (we are in Georgia, this southern state where the filmmaker had already filmed Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). Everything here is told at double speed. A bit like in Found guilty (film that we often think of), the hero of Juror #2 has only a short time to retrace his personal path on the evening of the accident and redo the training completed for years. The jurors, all convinced of the evidence, want to get this over with as quickly as possible and in a few hours, the verdict must be rendered. James must hurry if he wants to save the skin of the false culprit.

But paradoxically, this race against time is coupled with a slowdown. The film embraces all the digressions of its hero's consciousness and multiplies the flashbacks or intimate detours. It's as if, for Eastwood, a wise 94-year-old, the best way to save time was to know how to take a few more rations. The unexpected ending proves in any case that the old lion still knows how to surprise when it comes to showing what daily courage could be.