★★★

“Flawed as it is…”

No sermons, no lectures, and no statements; but in Juror #2, Clint Eastwood empathizes with the American system of justice.  Every time I saw something that otherwise would have annoyed me as a lawyer, I liked the film more for the personal ethics it applies to the political system.

When J.K. Simmons’s character drives to the scene of the alleged murder, and then the next day takes Juror #2 Justin Kemp (Nicolas Hoult) aside not only to admonish him for following him there but to privately discuss it in such detail that includes the examination of vehicle repair documents that were not in evidence, the lawyer in me was practically screaming “mistrial!” while the citizen and moviegoer in me saw and appreciated something different.  Yes, this is one of those moments where legal accuracy must be disregarded in order to keep the plot going.  But the sequence put the main character’s ethical dilemma into laser focus.

Kemp was there at the bar on the night that the defendant and his girlfriend were last seen together, where they had a fight that was caught on video, and where the girlfriend walked away in the pouring rain of a pitch black night, only to be found the next morning dead off the side of a bridge half a mile away from the bar on a rocky and slippery hiking trail down below.  Kemp, a recovering alcoholic who came within an inch of relapsing that night at the bar (buying a drink but never taking a sip is itself a wonderful visual metaphor for the line he believes he’s trying to walk at all times) after a personal family tragedy, got in his car, began driving home, and while going over the bridge bumped into what he thought was a deer.  It may not have been, but until Opening Statements, he has not had reason to even think about that night since, especially with his wife now being pregnant again with what he hopes will be their first successful birth of a child.  She is due potentially during the trial.

So when Simmons’s Harold, an old police detective (somehow the question “has any prospective juror has served in any law enforcement capacity?” was never asked during voir dire) applies his own expertise to the investigation for the rest of the jury, presumably just because he sees that as a productive way to deliberate with them, Kemp understands that on the one hand, this may help acquit the defendant who he knows did not commit the murder.  But on the other hand, Harold’s own investigation leads back to the vehicle Kemp himself was driving that night, and may implicate him for the crime.  Kemp plays along and pretends to fumble the documents in plain sight with both imperatives in mind.  Again, this subtle turn suggests something about him and the kind of ordinary juror who may find himself similarly situated: he is clumsy by nature and not especially thoughtful, yet nonetheless trying to do some version of the “right” thing.

That character path is designed to sharply contrast Kemp with the main character of Juror #2’s cinematic ancestor 12 Angry Men, where Henry Fonda’s Juror No. 8 starts the film off having reasonable doubt and just enough empathy to get the rest of them talking, and ends it with a moment of communal healing beyond anything he’d ever intended.  Like in that film, several members of this jury have biases and prejudices that should have disqualified them from serving on it in the first place.  But Kemp grows less sympathetic the more he feigns that same empathy and sense of principle with the rest of the jury he’s trying to work over.  This is the case even though the truth is probably on his side.

But just when you might think Juror #2 will result in the same outcome, the prosecutor Faith (Toni Collette), whose upcoming DA election depends on securing a guilty verdict in this case, and who is tipped off by Harold as to the lazy police work that likely occurred here, starts doing her own digging, and the perspective of the film dramatically shifts.  It doesn’t take long before she comes into indirect contact and conflict with Kemp.

Faith resembles Olivia Wilde’s Kathy Scruggs from the previous film Eastwood directed that didn’t feature himself – the excellent and underrated Richard Jewell.  Like Scruggs, her career depends on big juicy hits, and she exudes the brash force of confidence you’d need to do your job and stay connected.  But unlike Scruggs, Faith doesn’t pivot out of an unscrupulous desire to stay relevant.  While not as believable as Kemp’s dilemma, Eastwood uses her to institutionalize the old Blackstone ratio that it is better to acquit a thousand guilty men than to condemn one innocent.

Faith’s 1A lead role to his 1 in Juror #2 darkens an already flawed judicial system.  But Eastwood force feeds his audience with optimism at every turn.  No one in this film is evil; mostly just busy.  The line is on repeat: “this system isn’t perfect,” “flawed as the process is,” etc.  But does anyone know or agree what the flaws actually are?  What sturdy bulwark exists to prevent the perpetrator from executing a cover-up if he so happens to find himself in the right room?  What sanction exists to force the politically aspiring prosecutor to reveal the arguably not-totally exculpatory evidence in a murder case?  What compels jurors to remain hemmed in by the evidence as presented to them by the parties and their attorneys in a courtroom setting when it’s so easy not to?  None of the answers are clear.  If the flaws aren’t agreed upon, that may be its own hidden benefit.  Eastwood seeks to uphold the system and its virtues even when it so blatantly fails.

Juror #2 marks the end not only of one of the greatest careers in Hollywood, but a fitting capstone marking the end of a fascinating creative decade.  American Sniper (2014), Sully (2016), The 15:17 to Paris (2018), The Mule (2018), Richard Jewell (2019), Cry Macho (2021), and now this film all mix the personal with the systemic.  He has become today what his old partner Don Siegel was in the 1970s, but even that seems insufficient to appreciate him.

If you break Eastwood’s career into four stages, it looks roughly like this: Stage I: The Gunslinger (1954-67), Stage II: The Thriller (1968-88), Stage III: The Oscar Winner (1989-2012), and Stage IV: The Humanist (2013-Present). In Stage I, he was a rising star, best known for his roles in Rawhide and Sergio Leone’s The Man With No Name Trilogy. In Stage II, he partnered with Don Siegel, started directing films himself, and kickstarted Hollywood’s conservative counterculture as Harry Callahan. In Stage III, he began more closely studying Hollywood itself and coming to grips with his old age. His final stage began after the 2012 Empty Chair Speech. Whatever happened in that moment transformed him as an artist in a way that can only be compared to John Ford post heartbreak but before World War II. Ford’s run from 1939-41 (Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, Tobacco Road, and How Green Was My Valley) also produced seven films, which combined a mixture of New Deal politics, Irish heritage, American promise, and working class grit. All were clear-eyed poems of affection, and Eastwood’s latest films have similar introspection and precise perceptions that make him worthy of the comparison.

You usually don’t get to declare your last film. Eastwood is the exception because of course he is. Just look at him! And while you’re at it, look at his movies.

– Vivek