Juror #2

A great example of Eastwood's efficiency as a filmmaker: lean, taut storytelling that doesn't waste a moment.

In keeping with his late-era films, Eastwood isn’t playing devil’s advocate, but rather a modern-day philosopher, daring to challenge where many look for affirmation. If this is indeed Clint’s last hurrah, it’d be as good as any to end on.

It’s a thorny, thoughtful film, and I wish its own studio had more confidence in it.

It sits at a perfect mid-point between a spry satire of America’s creaking legal system and an “old man yells at cloud” laundry list of civic grievances which plays like a right wing tabloid op-ed written in light.

If this is to be a swansong, it’s a fitting one: a thrillingly watchable legal thriller about truth, justice and (for better and for worse) the American way, as told by an all-American icon. 

Morally complex, smart fare that’s made for adults.

The film is a study in tension.

Nicholas Hoult leads Clint Eastwood's engrossing legal thriller.

[A] contrived if provocative script is saved from a fatal case of implausibility by the tidy treatment Clint Eastwood brings to “Juror #2,”...ensuring that its critical observations about the American judicial system come across.

Juror #2‘s overall impact is hampered by Eastwood’s predictably lackadaisical approach to the material...