Juror #2 (Clint Eastwood, 2024)

Bonus review: Space Cowboys (Clint Eastwood, 2000)

Clint Eastwood directs his 46th film with Juror #2, a courtroom drama starring Nicholas Hoult as a jury member who knows something that may be useful for Toni Collette in her role as prosecutor.

It is not the first time that Hoult and Collette have appeared on screen together, but it’s been a while since they co-starred with Hugh Grant in the successful British comedy drama About A Boy (2002), based on the book by Nick Hornby.

Hoult was, if you remember, the ‘boy’ from the title, even though you could argue that Grant’s character was also still a boy at heart. 

At 34, Hoult has matured into a very good actor, while Collette, for her part, is as wonderful as she has always been. 

In this new movie, based on a script by Jonathan A. Abrams, they are surrounded by a great supporting cast, that includes Chris Messina as the defense lawyer, J.K. Simmons as a jury member and Kiefer Sutherland as the leader of an AA-group.

The story concerns Justin Kemp (Hoult), a recovering alcoholic who works as a journalist for a regional lifestyle magazine in Savannah, Georgia.

Justin and his wife Allison (Zoey Deutch) are expecting their first child when he is called on for jury duty in a murder trial.

Justin thinks he knows next to nothing  about the case going in, but he soon finds out he actually knows more about it than he would have liked to. I will not spoil much more - there are some in the trailer I posted - but it involves the kind of moral dilemma that could change his life, and that of those around him, forever.

And so, pretty soon Justin finds himself in the Grey Area to end all Grey Areas, which is essentially where Eastwood wants him to be, as the 94-year old director has always been interested in morality plays. 

All the main characters have their own motivation: assistant district-attorney Faith Killebrew (Collette) wants to become the next District-Attorney, alleged murderer James Michael-Sythe (Gabriel Basso) wants to prove his innocence, the public defender (Geoff Messina) wants to help him, while jury member Harold (Simmons) wants to prove he’s still got what it takes to deliver a meaningful contribution to society

Some of the other jury members just want to wrap up jury deliberations asap to go home to their families, which makes you want to question the value of the American juror system.

As for Justin:, you may find yourself wondering what a good man might do, even though the plot that puts him in such a tight spot at times requires some of that old ‘suspension of disbelief.’

And therein lies the rub. There are way too many coincidences, both when it comes to general plot developments and the actions of individual characters, to create any kind of real tension.

Including an ending that’s on the one hand a logical conclusion based on everything that’s come before so you can see it coming from miles away.

Yet on the other hand it just raises more questions and could even be seen as a cliffhanger for a possible Juror #2 pt. 2 (which I don’t think will be on the cards).

Having said all that, I enjoyed Juror #2 for what it is: a relatively small scale affair, with some very good actors, having a good time with a beloved filmmaker.

It doesn’t have any flashy camera work nor does it boast a boombastic sound design, but it still feels cinematic enough (in admittedly a somewhat old fashioned way) to want to see in a theater.

Eastwood is obviously nearing the end of his great career - I’m willing to believe this is his ‘last movie’ until he actually makes another one - and if you either followed him for most of that time or have a hankering for the time a new John Grisham adaptation came out every six months, you’ll probably want to see this, no matter what.

I can’t in good conscience give it a passing grade myself, but I give it 2 1/2 stars.

Note: Juror #2 had its world premiere last night at AFI Fest in Los Angeles. The movie is released in most of Europe later this week, with other countries to follow over the coming weeks.

As a bonus for Clint-fans I dug up an old review of Space Cowboys (2000).

No matter how old men get, Space Cowboys is proof that their boyhood dreams are bound by neither time nor space. Clint Eastwood has directed an enjoyable fantasy in which he and three other old timers are given the chance to fulfill a lifelong ambition: to go on a space mission. That the world needs saving is of almost secondary importance.

"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now", Bob Dylan once sang in My Back Pages. Aging has long been a theme in Clint Eastwood's oeuvre, but never before has he dealt with it so lightly as in Space cowboys. Perhaps it is therefore better to take the opposite viewpoint and conclude that the cheerful message he is propagating here can be summed up by the phrase: 'stay young!'

Written by Ken Kaufman and Howard Klausner, Space cowboys is set in the world of space travel, but is intended for anyone with dreams that have long since been overtaken by, for example, having children, a bad condition, or simply age. Clint Eastwood encourages everyone who dreams of doing something great someday, somewhere, before it's actually too late for that.

In Space Cowboys, this happens to four former top aviators, who together formed Team Daedalus in the 1960s and were nominated for a long time to be the first Americans to be sent into space. At least until the NASA officials decided to use a more intelligent and suitable creature for that: a monkey. Thus, the Russians won that part of the Space Race while Frank Corvin (Eastwood) and the rest of his motley crew bitterly stepped back after a conflict with NASA boss Bob Gerson (James Cromwell).

Thirty-five years later, however, that same Gerson is forced to enlist Frank's help when the sky threatens to fall in the form of an old Russian spy satellite. This Icon is powered for mysterious reasons by an American operating system so old that only its designer, Frank Corvin, can handle it. The clock is ticking and all that's left is that Frank and his old crew are still being launched into space to carry out the necessary repair work. By the time our space cowboys really lift off from Earth, the film has long brushed off any sense of reality, without affecting the film's inner logic. Of course, it's impossible for four men with an average age of over 65 — seriously taken down, by the way, by the 54 of slacker Hawk Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones) — to be groomed in three weeks for a space program that requires young, fit guys to train for a year and a half. . But that's not the point. Space cowboys is a fantasy. It is a film in which the makers try to make the audience an irresistible proposal. Both sides know that what's happening on the screen can't be true, but the illusion is so nice, why would anyone want to let it be disturbed by something as futile as reality?

Watching Space cowboys and, most importantly, going along with it (or them) is part of a conspiracy. A feeling that's heightened by the fact that the quintessential foursome - which includes flight engineer Jerry O'Neill (Donald Sutherland) and navigator Tank Sullivan (James Garner) - are also plotting against dark NASA forces that would rather bring them to the ground.

They receive support from a mission supervisor played by Marcia Gay Harden, who seems really happy with such an attractive senior citizen's club around her. Part of its charm is in its playful old man humour, characterized by a pleasing sense of self-mockery and eager use of every possible physical flaw.

The joy that the veterans radiate feels real. When asked if he wanted to play in a Clint Eastwood movie for a hundred thousand dollars, Donald Sutherland is said to have answered: "Fine. Just give me two weeks to get the money together." Even the ever so cranky Tommy Lee Jones looks like he was having a good time. They're big kids. Frank, Tank, Hawk and Jerry. Young dogs too. In this playful way, Eastwood emphasizes that the boy in the man does not have to die prematurely.

Space Cowboys is a warm, humanistic film, which loses some of its eloquence in the last part when the story conforms a little too easily to the laws of the average American blockbuster. Then Space turns cowboys into an Armageddon for the over-65s, including a fine example of self-sacrifice à la Bruce Willis in that patriotic mega-hit. Visually, the professional but never too glossy-looking film can compete with most major summer films, and there is nothing wrong with the special effects that are deployed in the last half hour. In hindsight, however, it is the first hour and a half of Space cowboys that lives on in memory. Those memories feed the brain and so the cycle of unrealizable but life-affirming dreams begins again.

Note: Space Cowboys is available to watch on various streaming platforms like Prime Video and Google Play.