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

Movie Review - Luckiest Girl Alive

Director: Mike Barker
Genre: Thriller/ Drama/ Mystery
Runtime: 113 minutes
Year: 2022
Starring: Mila Kunis, Chiara Aurelia, Finn Wittrock, Connie Britton, Scoot McNairy, Jennifer Beals
 
Description: A woman (Mila Kunis) in New York, who seems to have things under control, is faced with a trauma that makes her life unravel.

Review: With “Luckiest Girl Alive”, Mila Kunis reaches out to rape victims. And her film does so quite subtly, too.

Mila Kunis is one of those actresses that needs to get more credit for her work. In “Luckiest Girl Alive” we follow Ani, a talented writer for a successful magazine, about to marry a dream guy and seems to be living her best life. Not for the fact that she is still greatly affected by a trauma, something that happened to her when she was a teenager. When she thought she had passed on from it, everything seems to be coming back to her. Most films would be overly emotional, but “Luckiest Girl Alive” tackles this drama differently.

Ani seems to care much about what others think of her, constantly trying to be the best. She is a much hated figure, because of her alleged involvement in a school shooting when she was younger. A documentary filmmaker wants to get her on camera to talk about this incident: something she has never done in all those years. In flashbacks, bit by bit, we get to see the lead-up to the tragedy and the trauma that she still carries with her.

Young Ani is excellently played by Chiara Aurelia, Mila Kunis is adult Ani, and is also very good. Aurelia has some real difficult scenes to play and Kunis has the job to show us who she became 20 years later, with that trauma ticked beneath the surface.

I don’t think “Luckiest Girl Alive” is by any means a groundbreaking or super memorable film, but it does one thing so well: Ani is a victim of victim blaming and slutshaming, which is depicted very realistically in this film. And the way Ani deals with it, is raw and might make you uncomfortable. But also very realistic. And for that reason alone, I can definitely recommend this movie.

Rating: 3,5/ 5

TV Show Review - The Book of Boba Fett (Season 1)

Season: 1
Genre: Science Fiction/ Adventure/ Action
Number of episodes: 7
Year: 2021
Starring: Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, Pedro Pascal, Timothy Olyphant, Rosario Dawson, Sophie Thatcher, Jordan Bulger, Jennifer Beals, Amy Sedaris, Stephen Root, Danny Trejo

Description: Bounty hunter Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and mercenary Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) navigate the underworld when they return to Tatooine to claim Jabba the Hutt’s old turf.

Review: “The Book of Boba Fett” may seem like an interlude while we wait for the third season of “The Mandalorian”, but this series about the tough bounty hunter is a worthy successor to the Disney+ original. But you first have to get through the first four episodes. Because at the point, you might have the feeling you want to give up on the series. It feels a bit directionless. But when we get to episode 5, the series becomes more interesting and worth your time. Just sad that a number of old acquaintances are needed to bring this about.
Boba Fett is one of the most popular characters in the Star Wars universe. We get to know more about his background in this series and we get so see his face more often.
The show has a fragmented narrative style. Fett moves into the former palace of the late Jabba the Hutt to run the city of Mos Espa on the desert planet Tatooine. The moments when the fearless Fett takes things in his stride and takes on a corrupt cowardly mayor are interspersed with his backstory. We see how Fett wakes up more alive than dead and seeks refuge with a Tusken tribe, retaliates their brutal slaughter, and recruits Fennec Shand, whom we remember from “The Mandalorian”.
The many flashbacks take place s Fett recharges himself in his bactatank. It results in unfortunate and endless alternations of snippets of his memoirs from the past and macho behavior and competitions to squash the present. Where it’s all supposed to lead becomes clear only when a concrete goal and enemy loom.
Like “The Mandalorian”, “The Book of Boba Fett” comes from the min of Jon Favreau, who has apparently received approval from Disney to work on several Star Wars spin-off series. Understandably so, as “The Mandalorian” was a hit despite its completed missions that always spanned an episode.
This time around, Favreau has a longer story arc in mind, but it will take event the true fan of the Star Wars universe to hold their attention. This all changes when the fifth episodes comes along. Then we get the level we wanted to experience all along. It’s then that Favreau’s larger plan becomes clear.  
The last three of the total seven episodes are not only a feast for the eyes, but also a mix of new angles and a feast of recognition. It’s just sad for “The Book of Boba Fett” that the main character hardly had anything to do with the success of these final episodes, because he’s barely in episode 6 and not at all present in episode 5. I think Boba Fett is such a popular character because he is so mysterious and we didn’t know much about him. He is probably not interesting enough to devote an entire TV-show to.
All in all, “The Book of Boba Fett” has a slow start, but eventually redeems itself due to some familiar faces and a great build-up to “The Mandalorian” season 3.