Runaway Jury Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)October 17th, 2003
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In the days of yore, before courtroom dramas made up the majority of prime-time television programming, there were these things we called John Grisham Books, which were usually about some young, naïve Southern lawyer on the run from (or sometimes chasing after) his corrupt elder colleagues. People liked them a whole lot, and eventually Hollywood started adapting these novels into films. And people liked the films even more. But the phenomenon fizzled out thanks to a combination of things, not limited to Robert Altman getting his lethally boring hands on The Gingerbread Man, the dull big-screen version of Grisham's preachy The Chamber, and the author's side trips away from the law and toward sports and Christmas, of all things.
Runaway Jury is the best of Grisham's books, though one wonders why it would cost $60 million to turn such an interesting story into the big, glossy behemoth that you'll see on the screen. Here, Big Tobacco is replaced by a more timely villain: A gun manufacturer who provided the weapon with which a disgruntled stock trader shot up his office in the film's opening scene. One of the victims (played by an uncredited Dylan McDermott) leaves behind a wife (Joanna Going) who attempts to sue the gun maker two years later.
Enter idealistic Southern attorney (Latin: Atticus Finchius) Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman, Confidence), who hopes to set an astounding precedent with a win in a New Orleans courthouse. Trouble is, Rohr is up against a slimy team of lawyers (headed by X2's Bruce Davison) who have hired the universe's best jury consultant, Rankin Fitch (Grisham vet Gene Hackman). Fitch and his team of privacy assassins study everything about potential jurors, from their body language to their medical records (did Grisham foresee the Patriot Act?). Rohr, meanwhile, is left with a seemingly less-effective consultant, who is played by Old School's Jeremy Piven.
Somehow, Fitch & Co. manage to overlook the guy who becomes Juror #9: Nicholas Easter (John Cusack, Identity), a part-time student and videogame aficionado who, upon receipt of his jury summons, heads to a voodoo store in a scene that, in retrospect, makes not one lick of sense. Is he working the jury from the inside? Will he throw the trial based on which side tosses the most money at his shady accomplice (Hoffman's Confidence costar, Rachel Weisz)? Does he have some other ulterior motive? Go see the movie yourself, cheapskate.
Director Gary Fleder's (Don't Say a Word) already dubious talents are further hindered by a screenplay which sports the pawprints of four different writers, including the brain trusts behind films like What's the Worst That Could Happen? And Knockaround Guys. One of them decided it would be cool to make up a scene where Hoffman and Hackman have one of those Big Centerpiece Dialogue things to themselves, as if it would capture the same kind of vibe (albeit a totally overrated one) as DeNiro and Pacino in Michael Mann's Heat. This scene wasn't in the book, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Also not in the book is Piven's character, though I blame his presence more on Cusack than anyone. This is the 10th film they've done together, making Piven the Clint to Cusack's Ron Howard.
On the plus side, most people will go to see the top-notch cast, and I don't think they'll be let down. Hackman is sufficiently unctuous, Cusack is (as always) very likable, and Hoffman's mumbling lends itself to a decent N'awlins accent. Paul Thomas Anderson regular Robert Elswit shoots the Big Easy in a manner that makes everything appear dark, rainy, creepy and foreboding. As a whole, Jury works in the most primal ways. It just took a mediocre filmmaker to reveal the weaknesses in Grisham's story.
2:07 - PG-13 for violence, language and thematic elements
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