Juror #2 is 12 Angry Men meets Minority Report
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Blender Dumbass👁 3
Imagine being born in the year 1930, starring in films since the 1950s and yet in 2024 ( at the age of 94 ) releasing a movie you directed. If you want to talk anti-ageism Clint Eastwood is the motherfucker you point to. Hell he even made a movie about anti-ageism in the early 2000s, called Space Cowboys which is a light rip-off of Armageddon. This time thought he swings at us with a great rip-off of a 1957 Sidney Lumet classic 12 Angry Men.
Like in 12 Angry Men the objective of the main character, Juror #2 ( Nicholas Hoult ) is to try to convince a group of 11 other Jury members that a guy on trial is in fact not a murderer. But unlike in 12 Angry Men, in a sort of Minority Report twist, that same Juror #2 is himself the murderer.
This is not a spoiler by the way. We learn it relatively quickly and this plot point is in the trailer. The movie Eastwood and writer Jonathan Abrams are making here is not a plot / reveal kind of detective movie. It is a dramatic irony movie. The entire movie holds on this idea that our protagonist knows that it was him. We know it from the very beginning with him, but nobody else does.
But it is also not a co-conspiracy with the audience movie. It is not like our guy here is some sort of a serial killer. He didn't even know he committed the crime, and would not have ever known about it, if he never went into the court room.
And more than that, the movie establishes a troubling situation for him, his wife ( Zoey Deutch ), is pregnant and soon will give birth, so he has to remain outside of prison, to care for his baby. That moral question in the heart of this character ( Should I give myself in? Should I think of the baby? ) is the main source of drama in the film. While the irony of us and him knowing the situation and fearing anybody else finds out, is the source of tension.
Eastwood is a smart director. From films he directed you can see that he cares a lot about shots he makes. One example in this movie is when the prosecutor ( Toni Collette ) goes to the scene of the crime and is nearly getting hit by a car that is framed to take the whole screen as it passes by. It both is a great source of shock and is also a very clever clue to the audience about what she is thinking about.
From a certain perspective the film lacks a great momentum building pace and also ends on somewhat of a bummer. Like either way you slice it, it will end on a bummer. Therefor I doubt a lot of people will like this movie. And the box office figures confirm my suspicion here. Even though the movie ( in Hollywood terms ) was cheap, it still was a flop.
Both 12 Angry Men and Minority Report will be a much better movie to watch if you want entertainment. Juror #2 instead is more of a philosophy thesis type of movie. It will be interesting to philosophy nerds and people who like very subtle drama. But it's not for your typical pop-corn audience.
Happy Hacking!!!
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