Rated PG-13 for violence, language and thematic elements

Directed by: Gary Fleder

Starring: John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Jennifer Beals, Cliff Curtis, Bruce Davison, Nora Dunn, Luis Guzman, Orlando Jones, Bruce McGill, Marguerite Moreau, Jeremy Piven, Nick Searcy, Nestor Serrano, Rusty Schwimmer, Guy Torry, Melora Walters, Stanley Anderson, Michael Arata, Gerry Bamman, Jason Davis, Deacon Dawson, Corri English, Wayne Ferrara, Joanna Going, Stuart Greer, Douglas M. Griffin, Rhoda Griffis, Gary Grubbs, Fahnlohnee R. Harris, Lori Heuring, Juanita Jennings, David Jensen, Mark Jeffrey Miller, Stephen Milton, Bill Nunn, Carol Sutton, Irene Ziegler

Plot:
Set in New Orleans, this is the story of a mysterious man, Nick Easter (Cusack) who gets himself on the jury of a landmark case against a gun manufacturer in an attempt to influence the other jury members to vote a certain way. Meanwhile, Easter's girlfriend, Marlee (Weisz), tries to swindle the attorneys (Hackman, Hoffman) to pay millions of dollars to have the jury return a verdict friendly to their clients. The case involves the widow of a man killed in an office shooting suing the gun manufacturer of the weapon that was used, under the claim that they knew the store that sold it was not obeying the laws about firearm sales.

Review:
Runaway Jury is a fast paced and a slick film that never stops for one second to let you breathe. John Grisham is a very well known novelist and he has yet another one of his books made into a film. One of the strengths of Runaway Jury is the strong cast it has.

The film features John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weisz. With a cast like that it almost makes you think how can the film possible go wrong. Well, while Runaway Jury is not a completely solid film, it holds you up and delivers with enough intensity to make it worth the ride.

The entire cast does their job well and never lets us down. In other words, Runaway Jury doesn't dissatisfy because the actors are enough interest alone to keep you watching. From the cast Gene Hackman easily gave the best performance. He was involved in a case that occurs all throughout the film.

The case is for a man that was killed with a gun and his wife is suing a gun manufacturer. She hires a man named Wendell which is played by Dustin Hoffman. And on the defendant side, they have a lawyer named Durwood which is played by Bruce Davison. Gene hackman gives him the orders over an ear piece he has to listen into.

Lets turn to Director Gary Fleder who Directed the underrated Don't Say A Word. His style is once again present, he has this sense of quick camera movements and fast pacing. It showed in Don't Say A Word and it shows in Runaway Jury as well.

While the films script wasn't crafted well and could have used improvement, Fleder manages to sustain us from thinking of that. With his unique intense ways for filmmaking, he delivered and it shows on the big screen. There are plenty of original and sadistic things in Runaway Jury and it features a lot of that nature actually.

This film features quite a number of interesting processes, but there was a sense of lacking. The acting was there, cinematography was good, but the story just never picked up. It was never interesting as the dialogue would sometimes go from serious to nonsense. Runaway Jury has a strong cast, but not too good of a story or dialogue. In the end, it was just an average John Grisham film. There have been better.

Runaway Jury is a film that comes and goes. You won't remember this film for weeks to come, but it was entertaining while it lasted. Its smart and clever enough to hold you down for its running time. It indeed turns out to be an acceptable John Grisham film.

"Walther PPK, thats the same gun that James Bond uses." A quote that was used in Runaway Jury.

Runaway Jury

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