Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, John Cusak, Rachel Weisz
Director: Gary Fleder
Released: 10/2003
Rating: 2 stars

Runaway Jury is another film based on a novel by John Grisham. As with all the other Grisham movies, this film attempts to be a legal thriller with action revolving around lawyers, some straight, some crooked. In this film, the story revolves around a lawsuit brought by the widow of victim of a workplace shooting against the gun company that made the gun used in the shooting. The heart of the film is not the trial, but three different sides all trying to control the jury to ensure an outcome acceptable to them. The widow is represented by idealistic lawyer Wendell Rohr (Hoffman). Rohr believes in the sanctity of the law his case. The gun company is represented by Durwood Cable publicly (Bruce Davison), but hotshot jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Hackman) calls the shots that he guarantees will deliver a jury sympathetic to them. Nicholas Easter (Cusak) and his girlfriend Marlee (Weisz) are the outsiders/insiders who offer to sell the jury to whichever side pays their $10 million demand. Easter has gotten himself on the jury and promises he can swing them whichever way he wants.

I am not usually a big fan of Grisham movies, nor am I of his books. They both tend to be like cotton candy: light fare that doesn't leave much behind when it's gone. My main interest in seeing this film was the stellar cast assembled, highlighted by Hoffman, Hackman, and Cusak. While the acting is respectable by all parties, the film ultimately falls into many of the usual traps of Grisham stories.

First of all, there is not an economy of characters. Jeremy Piven plays a young jury consultant Lawrence Green who offers his services to Rohr. We are given a scene early in the film where Green tries to overcome a skeptical Rohr, and eventually gets the unsolicited job for a fraction of his usual fee. After this scene, Green's job is to simply be seen in the background of court scenes. He serves no purpose, so why is this scene where he is hired there. You could rip his character out of the film entirely and no one would notice. Similarly, the film attempts to give other jury members some sort of identity, and even casts known names (like Jennifer Beals and Luiz Guzman) to play the parts. In the end, the jury is just 11 essentially faceless and nameless bodies, plus Easter. So why take the time for a half-hearted attempt at making them real characters just to drop them later?

Another usual Grisham problem is the overly idealistic lawyer, this time Rohr. One might expect idealism from a young upstart, like Grisham has in many other books. But this is an experienced, successful lawyer. He's been around the block quite a big and ought to know by now that simply having a good presentation and evidence does not guarantee a satisfactory outcome, especially when going up against an opponent with so much to lose and so many resources. In the end, Easter reveals himself to be something of an idealist himself. In the end, he simply allows the jury to "vote their heart", which guarantees the outcome he always intended. This ends up being somewhat preachy. Such idealistic characters are pretty hard to take sometimes, and this film is such a case.

The biggest problem in the film, though, is the absolutely unfathomable coincidence that drives the film in the first place. Easter and Marlee have, apparently, been travelling the country trying to get on the jury of a big gun case so they can carry out their plot. It must be a gun case, not just any big case, for reasons the film will eventually reveal. How incredibly fortunate, then, that of all the cases going to trial in New Orleans, Easter just happens to get picked to serve on the one trial about guns. This is preposterous. A viewer can only be expected to suspend their disbelief so far, and this goes well past the limit. And for our protagonists, this development is the heart of their plan. This ridiculousness is the starting point for the story, so the whole story is tainted.

In the end, you are left with what you started with: a film with Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and John Cusak. Just about any film with that cast will be respectable. Unfortunately, that's all it is.

Last updated 02/19/2004 01:25 PM