The Cinema Girl | Runaway Jury (2003)

The last legal thriller to emerge from the decade (1993-2003) when John Grisham bestsellers were regular Hollywood fare, Runaway Jury is the sleekest and most fun of the bunch precisely because the filmmakers were so aware of what came before, and avoid the usual pitfalls. Director Gary Fleder made the wonderfully moody Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead before moving on to slick adaptations like Impostor and Kiss the Girls, and he knows how to pull drama from a pageturner. Using a script co-written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Rounders), Fleder finds moments of genuine humor and builds tangible tension in the clockwork plotting, turning Grisham's morality play into a series of intersecting con games. The subject of the civil trial (the liability of gun manufacturers in a workplace shooting) becomes almost a red herring once the players begin working on each other. Whether their motivations are pure or venal, everyone trying to sway the trial's outcome is playing a game, using every tool of manipulation at their disposal. Nick Easter (John Cusack) employs a low-key charm to win favor with his fellow jurors while his partner Marlee (Rachel Weisz) displays a steely determination when soliciting a pay-off from both the plaintiff's attorney Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman) and the defendant's jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman). Whip-smart Rohr plays up his shambling Southern gentleman persona in court (Hoffman portrays him like a male version of Tootsie's Dorothy Michaels), while Hackman oozes more menace here than as the racist killer of The Chamber, his Fitch reveling in an ability to make weak-minded mortals bend to his mighty will. Duplicity is so ingrained in these characters that even when Runaway Jury arrives at Grisham's standard righteous ending, there's the distinct feeling that a winning verdict doesn't mean the victors come away clean. Shot in pre-Katrina New Orleans, and making the city look not only beautiful but eternal, there's an unintended poignancy to this film, which promises redress for colossal wrongs, if not actual justice. — Serena Donadoni [printer-friendly version] [see the poster and dvd]