Most courtroom movies focus on the victim of a crime, the person accused of the crime, or one of the lawyers. Director Clint Eastwood takes a different approach in Juror #2. We see the trial through the eyes and decisions of one of the jurors.
Nicholas Hoult is Justin Kemp, a journalist in Georgia. When he is called for jury duty, he is reluctant to serve because his wife Ally (Zoey Deutch) is going through a high-risk pregnancy and is due soon. When the trial begins, Justin discovers he has another reason for being concerned about the case.
James Sythe (Gabriel Basso) is accused of killing his girlfriend, Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) after he was seen following her on the road after they had a fight at a bar. She was later found dead under a bridge. Justin realizes that he was at the same bar that night and on the road hit something with his car. He thought it was a deer, but it could have been Kendall. He tells this to his AA sponsor (Kiefer Sutherland), a defense lawyer, who advises him to keep quiet because as a recovering alcoholic, he could be charged with a hit-and-run.
At first, Justin raises questions during jury deliberations about Sythe’s guilt, especially when another juror (J. K. Simmons), a retired detective, investigates the case on the side and not only decides that it was a hit-and-run but that a car like Justin’s was involved. Meanwhile, the prosecutor, Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette), who needs a conviction to bolster her run for district attorney, begins to have some doubts about Sythe and Juror #2.
Eastwood has put together a complex, yet pretty straightforward, case. We know from the beginning who is guilty. What is interesting, turning this into a thriller, is seeing how the jury deliberations twist and turn from facts to evidence to speculations.
The film could actually be shown to prospective jurors waiting in courtrooms to show how the justice system should and should not work! Those who have served on a jury will recognize the requirements: the importance of impartiality; the prohibition against a juror doing his/her own investigations; the jury’s approach to evidence, both direct and circumstantial; and what can happen with jurors have sympathy for either the victim’s family or the accused.