Runaway Jury

December 10, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 127 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Runaway Jury is the latest John Grisham story to be adapted to the big screen. And although courtroom drama is not our usual cup of tea, Grisham is a guilty pleasure. Throw in a stellar cast led by Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and John Cusack and set it all in New Orleans, and we couldn’t resist.

Runaway Jury

The trial in this movie is about guns. A busted out daytrader returns to the office with a semi automatic weapon acquired on the street and shoots up all of his former coworkers. The wife of one of the victims decides to file a law suit again the manufacturer of the gun that was used. This is a huge case because the gun industry doesn’t want a precident that gives them liability for what some nutbag who bought their product second hand out of some guy’s trunk does with the weapon.

Gene Hackman portrays a jury consultant hired by the gun industry. His theory is “some decisions are too important to be decided by a jury”, and he goes to extreme lengths to select the right jury and insure he’ll get the verdict he wants. However, John Cusack plays a member of the jury who has his own ideas. And left in the middle of all of this is Dustin Hoffman as the lawyer for the wife plaintiff who seems to have watched one too many episodes of Matlock.

This is a wonderful cast and a very well executed movie. It was tough for us to check our politics at the door, but for the most part we did and subsequently enjoyed the movie. However, this movie is very anti-gun and for anyone who is truly a fan of individual rights and personal freedoms will at times shake their heads at the messages the movie tries to send. After cleaning our guns for a couple of days and thinking about it, we’ve decided to give this movie 3 stars.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 3 Stars, Drama, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Jennifer Beals, John Cusack, R, Rachel Weisz, Theatrical