RUNAWAY JURY

With a stellar cast and a decent story, courtesy of John Grisham, this film should have entertained me a lot more than it did.

It’s hard not to blame the director, Gary Fleder. This was his fifth feature film and according to my research team (i.e. Wikipedia) all of his previous efforts met with the thumbs down from the critics, and so maybe it’s not surprising that I can’t think of a single memorable scene or even moment.

It would also be interesting to read the source novel so as to work out what the four (!) screenwriters added or removed. 

Did they for example add the unnecessary (and poorly directed) scene where Rachel Weisz's character is attacked? 

Or what about the character of Lawrence Greene? Early on, time is spent establishing him as an assistant to the lead prosecution lawyer, but he then does nothing and disappears from the film at some point, not that anyone notices or cares.

The main problem for me is that I couldn’t get emotionally invested in the outcome of the trial. 

Maybe that’s because we spend virtually no screen time with the plaintiff. 

Or maybe that no effort is made to make her lawyer (played by Dustin Hoffman) a three-dimensional character.

I felt uneasy throughout because the tone of the film suggests we are watching hokum (which we are), yet the issue at the heart of the trial, gun violence, is a deadly serious one. 

In the novel the corporate Big Bad is tobacco, which might have been less jarring in the film given that tobacco is now a less emotive subject than shootings.

As someone who loves courtroom dramas I was also disappointed about the lack of time spent in the jury room getting to know the jurors. Only the army veteran makes any impression.

John Cusack and Rachel Weisz turn out to be the 'good guys' but I spent most of the film wondering what had happened to the former’s usual charm and likeability, so much so that I found the way he was manipulating the jury quite unattractive.

Anyway the film moves along quickly enough that one doesn’t have too much time to dwell on the shortcomings, but the climax doesn’t amount to much and I ended up feeling short-changed.

I’ve yet to see a bad Gene Hackman film (yes, he's part of the aforementioned stellar cast) but this one came perilously close.

RATING: x Find Something Better To Do