Stream or skip?

Burning question: Is Juror #2 (Stream now on Max) Clint Eastwood’s swansong? Hollywood’s best is 94 years old, it’s his 40th film as a director and his shelves are full of trophies. You could say he’s playing with house money at this point. And you could also say that he doesn’t quite fit the business of contemporary cinema anymore – not because of the quality of his work, but because his longtime studio, Warner Bros., showed little interest in it Juror #2which gave it a perfunctory, brief and ridiculously limited theatrical release before transferring to home platforms. Which is frankly stupid, especially considering it’s probably his best work since 2004’s Oscar darling Million Dollar Baby. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that Eastwood still enjoys being behind the camera – it’s just unlikely.

JUROR #2: STREAM OR SKIP?

The essentials: It’s the mail that inevitably elicits audible groans: a jury subpoena. It has less to do with not wanting to do your civic duty and more to do with disruption to normal life for an afternoon to several weeks. However, it could be worse – you could be Justin Kemp (Nicolas Hoult). I mean, this guy is in a really bad situation. I’ll explain: During jury selection, he expresses concern about commitment, explaining that his wife Allison (Zoey Deutch) is dealing with a high-risk pregnancy and that her pregnancy is imminent. However, that doesn’t get him out (and it probably shouldn’t). He sighs and resigns himself to sitting in court, wrangling other jurors, and making the justice system work.

However, that’s not half the battle. It’s hardly the weird little stem at the end. Why? We’re getting there. Patience, please. It’s a murder trial. Michael Sythe (Gabriel Basso) is accused of murdering his girlfriend Kendall (Clint’s daughter Francesca Eastwood, seen in flashbacks) one dark and stormy night after having a few drinks and arguing at a bar. The next morning she was found over the edge of an embankment along Old Quarry Road. Her skull was fractured, bones were broken, her body was twisted. Blunt instrument, angry friend, open and closed, right? Prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) is betting that winning the trial will clinch her victory in her run for district attorney, and Sythe’s public defender (Chris Messina) doesn’t do much except insist that the guy doesn’t It was a crime scene and is therefore innocent.

Now to our man Justin. Guess what? Not only was he at the same bar the night Kendall died, but he was driving home along Old Quarry Road, hitting something in his Forerunner, getting out in the pouring rain to survey the damage, walking away from it that he had hit a deer and went home. Two and two come together and add up to a whole heap of shit for Justin. On top of that, he lied to his wife about where he was because he’s a recovering alcoholic and definitely shouldn’t have gone near a bar. Justin shares his story confidentially with his AA sponsor, who also happens to be a lawyer (Kiefer Sutherland), and warns him that if he comes clean, he’ll be screwed with his previous DUIs on his record. Of course, the defense’s argument is weak and the jury just wants to get out of there quickly, so they’re willing to send Sythe to jail. But Justin is the only one who wants to think about it. He doesn’t want an innocent person to be convicted. He also doesn’t want to give up the life he’s rebuilt and leave Allison as a single mother for the next few decades. What to do. What to do.

What films will it remind you of?: Juror #2 is a clever mix of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Rashomon And 12 angry men.

Performance worth seeing: The acting is exemplary throughout, the supporting cast led by the typically nuanced and charismatic work of Collette. And Hoult serves as a prototypical Eastwood protagonist, whose plaintive features and emotional directness lie on a soul in turmoil; It’s clearly one of the highlights of his career, if not his strongest role to date.

Memorable dialogue: Of course, one of the jurors is a true crime lover who wants to share her “experience” in the middle of a debate session:

A Juror: Your experience is listening to crime podcasts.

True Crime Lady: Wait a minute – And Watch out Dateline!

Gender and skin: None.

Our opinion: Eastwood handles this material with a ruthless efficiency that seems only achievable when you’ve been a true professional in the business for decades. It helps that Jonathan Abrams’ script is the best Eastwood has worked with in years. It’s deeply rooted in the character and creates a high-pressure situation for our protagonist, who has no good solutions to his problem. It is also complex: the prospective public prosecutor does not want to publicly fuel his doubts about the case. A juror played by JK Simmons knows sloppy police work when he sees it. The defendant, a former gang member with a prominent neck tattoo, has a criminal record but is not only willing to forego a plea deal and go to trial, but also to take the stand. The other jurors see the 10-piece puzzle presented to them in court, even though there are more like 1,000. And Justin, given a second chance after his own troubles, believes Sythe deserves one too, and uses this point as a wedge in deliberations, secretly hoping to persuade the other jurors to acquit, which is in his favor the most beneficial outcome is his secret predicament. But this is an uphill battle.

Now I have my doubts about whether this situation is even plausible, but at no point does it feel like over-the-top, over-the-top Hollywood nonsense. Eastwood’s matter-of-fact approach largely precludes this anyway. And it unfolds in a somewhat believable way that is less designed to be entertaining – although that is certainly the case – and more designed to explore ideas about justice, redemption and the gray areas of morality and law, including the increasingly vague definition of the phrase “reasonable doubt.” However, I have little doubt Juror #2 is at the top of Eastwood’s directorial output, and I hope it’s not one of the last hurrahs for this type of provocative adult film.

Our call: The old man still has it. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.