00s Movie Review - Runaway Jury

Director: Gary Fleder
Genre: Crime/ Thriller/ Drama
Runtime: 127 minutes
Year: 2003
Starring: John Cusack, Rachel Weisz, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Bruce Davison, Bruce McGill, Jeremy Piven, Cliff Curtis, Leland Orser, Jennifer beals, Bill Nunn, Luis Guzman, Nora Dunn, Dylan McDermott

Description: A juror on the inside (John Cusack) and a woman on the outside (Rachel Weisz) manipulate a court trial involving a major gun manufacturer.

Review: Rankin Fitch is a ruthless jury consultant who must select a jury for a revolutionary trial to ensure its verdict. He fears nothing or no one. One the trial begins, it turns out that the selection of one juror can cause problems. He finds himself in a situation that shows he doesn’t know his opponent as well as he initially thought after all.

The films starts with a gruesome shooting in an office that kills many people. We are then place two years later when it is revealed that the shooting caused a trial to now take place that should set a precedent. The wife of one of the men killed is suing the gun manufacturer because it caused guns to be easy to get.

On one side us the conscientious lawyer Wendell Rohr. On the other, the man who is one the side of the gun manufacturer and who actually ges paid for it if the trial is won: Rankin Fitch. His job is to make sure who gets on the jury, because justice in the USA is still left to juries, so it is important to know the people on the jury well. Fitch’s team takes this very seriously and also very far.

Both parties are given a list of names and files of all the people who were called for jury duty, for them to decide which of them will actually be on that jury. Fitch thinks that they got this one, but someone within the jury is there with a purpose.

It is based on a John Grisham novel, an author known for his court dramas. But “Runaway Jury” is one of my favorites and it’s not your standard court drama either. We get to experience how incredibly flawed the jury system is. This movie is about manipulation, corruption, extortion and so on. And even though this movie came out in the early 2000s, this film is still so topical.

“Runaway Jury” is a very strong crime thriller with some surprising twists throughout and a fantastic cast. A movie that is underrated if you ask me.

Rating: 4/ 5