Runaway Jury Review
by John Ulmer (johnulmer2003 AT msn DOT com)February 9th, 2004
RUNAWAY JURY
4/5 stars
Date of Review: February 7th, 2004
REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER (Copyright, 2004)
John Grisham adaptations never succeed very well on the big screen because Grisham's strength lies not in his plots like Clancy or Crichton, but in his narrative drive present in all his books--which both of those authors have, as well, I might add. But Grisham has extraordinary narrative--like Crichton in particular--that propel his readers forward, page after page, until they hit the back cover and view the author's photo with a smile. They finished his book--faster than most books they've read before, too.
Grisham's books sell because of his narrative. Hollywood obviously doesn't care much about material all the time, but rather numbers--numbers that appear on the New York Times Bestsellers List in particular. If a novel does well on that list, it's basically got itself a movie. Perhaps not straight away, and perhaps not for many years, but eventually a Hollywood executive will be sorting through some old records of book sales and think, Gadzooks! Movie material! when he or she reads the reports.
To call "The Runaway Jury" Grisham's best novel would be arguable, and not quite correct from my own personal standpoint. To call it one of his best novels from a plot viewpoint would be absolutely correct. Grisham, himself an ex-lawyer, is one of the few authors who makes a career out of his interests and expertise--such as Clancy or Higgins--and so people take what he says as truth. Regardless of its numerous plot holes, "The Runaway Jury" moved along at such a rapid pace and with such a strong narrative drive, it was hard to really care about anything that might make you wonder how in the world the characters from the book could pull off what they were doing. Besides, Grisham was a lawyer. He wouldn't write a story about something that couldn't happen, right?
Well, he did, and like the characters in his own book, he pulled it off. My paperback copy of "The Runaway Jury"--which I read at a pretty rapid pace after digging into most of Grisham's novels--is packed full of errors, plot holes, and downright stupid ideas that seem as if they were conceived by a poorly-educated couch potato--the same kind Gene Hackman describes in the movie to Dustin Hoffman.
But Grisham's narrative is just too strong to deny.
"The Runaway Jury" is a con movie, but a different kind of con movie. This isn't something like "The Score," "Matchstick Men" or other movies about seemingly normal everymen pulling a heist--it's about two regular people who successfully con an entire courtroom out of random justice. They take matters into their own hands. You've probably seen the ads already: "Trials are too important to be decided by juries."
This particular trial happens to be what Grisham himself described as "the most important trial of the century." Well, almost, anyway. The book was about cigarettes, and the film is about gun control (we can thank Michael Mann's "The Insider" for the plot change--20th Century Fox decided that a film about cigarettes might seem like a rip-off). So in all actuality, the movie differs from the book in one major way. But as a reader of the novel and a viewer of the movie, I didn't notice many differences--at least not any differences that would harm the film as a whole. ("The Firm" was brutalized with its big screen treatment.)
Essentially the same central idea as the book--a jury being held under the control of a single man--the story starts with Nicholas Easter (John Cusack), a seemingly naive and innocent young man who is assigned to jury duty by the state after eight months of occupying his apartment. One of the biggest plot holes exists here, but by giving it away I'd be giving away some of the plot, so I resist with a grimace. Hopefully you'll notice it for yourself after (or even before) seeing the film.
The trial is targeted against a large gun manufacturer, which allowed a chagrined office worker to purchase a handgun and shoot an office full of innocent workers in a fit of rage after being fired from the same company. Now, one of the victims' wives is suing the gun company for allowing this "wack job" to get hold of handguns.
At the defense is Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman), who is ranking as filth in this film. He's a grumpy old corporate hard-on, just like Hackman always plays (with expert precision I might add), and he's essentially frowned upon as the "evil bad guy" in this movie. The good guy is Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), who is playing the same type of doofus lawyer he played in "Sleepers." Both actors play their parts with great accuracy, and their performances are the highlight of the movie.
Much like the highly-anticipated De Niro/Pacino showdown in Mann's other film, "Heat," we are finally presented with the first on-screen confrontation between Hackman and Hoffman--two old pals who just never decided to make a movie together. I'm glad they did. When they finally share the screen together, it feels like all the tension of the movie is let loose in one major segment. It's probably the best scene in the entire film, and it's powered by these two veteran actors in a way no others could do so. (Save De Niro and Pacino, of course.)
Essentially the jury is taken control of by Easter, who is a sly devil--and his conniving ways are expressed clearer in the book. Here, we have to guess how he's bagging these jurors a lot of the time--which, for someone who hasn't read the book, may be quite frustrating.
The catch is that the jury therefore becomes purchasable--for ten million dollars, the prosecution or the defense can buy a verdict. In the same style of a good old-fashioned auction, the bids keep getting higher and higher. Tension elevates, and startling revelations occur. Are the motives of Easter and his girlfriend working on the inside (Rachel Weisz) really what they seem?
The movie is based from a complete liberal standpoint, and the message comes across much stronger than Grisham's subtlety in the book. In fact, I somewhat agreed with a few of the points in Grisham's novels about cigarettes being targeted at children and being glamorized, etc.--but as much as "The Runaway Jury's" film adaptation tries to convince me, I don't see why the gun company should be held responsible for allowing a man to purchase a gun and murder people. I'm not saying it's not wrong. It is wrong. But the right to bear arms is in the Constitution, and the gun company didn't purposefully give this wacko a gun. They had no clue he was going to kill people. Why should they be held responsible?
The film tries to make us feel sorry for the victim's wife by presenting Fitch as a greedy guy who doesn't give--and I quote--"a sh!t about anything." It tries to make the conservatives look like foolish tycoons and the liberals as nice country folk who are deserving of hundreds of millions simply because a gun company happened to sell a gun to a madmen.
Grisham's books are almost always given awful screen treatments. "The Client," "The Firm," and "A Time to Kill" (which the laughable and oft-criticized UK critic Christopher Tookey referred to as "A View to a Kill" in his completely crazy review) are absolutely mediocre at best. Yet some of his best novels--including one of his more recent ones, named "The Summons" (almost all his novels begin with "The" or "A") aren't even considered for the screen. In fact, one of Grisham's finest and most subtly disturbing novels--one about humanity that takes place outside of the courtroom, and a film with loads of Oscar potential--wasn't even given a big-screen treatment. It's called "A Painted House," about a young boy growing up during the 50s in the south, and is absolutely haunting and superb. It's a chilling read, and more frightening--in a psychological way--than most Stephen King books. (The underlying gruesomeness of the novel, and its chilling portrayal of that era, are absolutely dead-on--and I can truly see it being turned into a film by a great director such as Rob Reiner or the Coen Brothers, or someone who understands how to accurately represent a certain time period.)
"A Painted House" was given a made-for-television treatment last year or so, which is basically as good as throwing itself into the electric chair for a quick execution. TV movies just aren't very good. I'd love to see that film given a good adaptation on the big screen.
But for now, "The Runaway Jury" stands as Grisham's best film adaptation yet. Yes, you probably haven't been able to tell from my review thus far, but I absolutely enjoyed this film from beginning to end. It has its flaws, and like all Grisham adaptations it also seems to lack the narrative drive of the author's writing--which makes up for his plot holes--but "The Runaway Jury" always was one of Grisham's strongest-plotted books. It's now his best film adaptation, carried by two great performances by two of the great screen veterans of our time. (Actors that are sometimes type cast because of past career-shaping performances.) I must admit that I was waiting for Hoffman to suddenly ask for K-Mart underwear, or to recite which aircraft carriers have had fatal crashes in the past, or to suddenly request that he immediately view an episode of "Jeopardy," but he never did. And that's always a good sign, isn't it?
- John Ulmer
Webmaster of The Movie Portal
http://www.wiredonmovies.com/
Updated daily, offers over one thousand free movie scripts and hundreds of free reviews, plus posters, sounds, quotes, and more.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
