Juror #2
Juror #2
While serving as a juror in a high-profile murder trial, a family man finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma, one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict or free the wrong killer.
Desmond Dale reviewedJanuary 24, 2025
While I will say that I found the affair to be both highly entertaining and well acted, ultimately I came away feeling like it only exacerbated my beefs with the films Eastwood often spearheads. I saw a lot of criticism about how the major plot action was preposterous and unrealistic, but I have never found realism to be synonymous with effectiveness. The level of realism didn't annoy as much as the film's level of antiquity and out-of-touchness.
And yes, I do find it annoying that Eastwood is once again manning a film that fails to understand the psyche of the average black person in America. Why are the black people in the film the biggest believers in the justice system? Why do they seem to be the most static and possess the weakest powers of deduction? Who ever heard of a good guy prosecutor who only cares about absolute justice above netting a guilty verdict? Or a good guy ex-cop willing to put himself on the line for the sake of absolute justice? And the last nail in the coffin of disappointment has to go to that completely uninspired ending. I'm all for open or opaque endings but the close of Juror #2 just felt lazy and underdeveloped.