Great Film: Runaway Jury
Awesome Performances by Hackman, Cusack, Hoffman & Weisz.
Not since Primal Fear have I seen a court room thriller that was really
good. Given the actors, I suppose you can't really go wrong. Usually I
can find some actor or actress that wasn't very good, bothered me in
some way or was flat out horrible. This movie featured superb acting by
all those involved. Even Jeremy Piven (who I can't help but picture as
the Dean in Old School or his characters from PCU or Very Bad Things)
delivered a respectable performance, and very different from the other
movies mentioned.
Runaway Jury doesn't throw in a lot of needless plot twists and
unexpected happenings just for the sake of throwing off or fooling the
viewer. In fact, it pretty much goes in the direction you think it
will, with only a couple of exceptions which are needed.
I'm usually the type that likes my movies to get it all done in around
90 minutes or so. Seems to me that most movies that go over 2 hours
have a lot of needless "filler" material for no real reason, which,
more often than not, results in slow, dragging scenes in the movie or
just a boring movie altogether. This particular movie clocked in at
just over 2 hours and used every minute wisely. Nothing boring and
nothing seemed to drag on forever. I found the beginning with the jury
selection particularly interesting. I thought the whole concept of
knowing how to get exactly who you want on your jury, even before they
actually show up to jury duty, was a little mind blowing. After seeing
those scenes, I knew it was going to be a great movie. I highly
recommend this movie, especially if you enjoyed movies like Primal
Fear, although this is a completely different movie with different
kinds of surprises.
Overall, Gene Hackman stole the show in this one and proves why he's
been working in movies and television for over 40 years now. I give
this 9 out of 10.
Cast
- Henry Jankle played by Stanley Anderson
- Judge Harkin played by Bruce Mcgill
- Rankin Fitch played by Gene Hackman
- Doyle played by Nick Searcy
- Lawrence Green played by Jeremy Piven
- Frank Herrera played by Cliff Curtis
- Nicholas Easter played by John Cusack
