Runaway Jury on DVD

Runaway Jury lives in an interesting, magical little world.

It’s a world in which capitalists are bad guys because all they care about is making money. A world in which anyone who disagrees with gun control is a bad person. A world in which blackmailing and manipulating people to make millions of dollars is acceptable, provided you’re doing it against conservatives.

Gee, it must be a documentary about Hollywood and liberals!

The movie opens with a random shooting in an office building, and then picks up a year later when the widow of a man killed in the shooting is suing a gun manufacturing company for a whole whack of cash. Nick (John Cusack) is called upon for jury duty, and it almost seems like he’s not all that keen on the whole thing (and who could blame him?). But it’s not long before we realize he’s in cahoots with a mysterious woman, Marlee (Rachel Weisz), who seems to have her own agenda.

The bad guy is Fitch (Gene Hackman), a jury consultant who’s willing to manipulate whomever is necessary to turn the tables in his favor. He doesn’t really care about the case itself; he just wants to make a few dollars if he helps the defendants win.

The only other major player is Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), seemingly the only decent lawyer on the planet. His only concern is winning the case for the “good guys,” and he’s confident enough that he’ll win because, well…there’s only one possible rational way of thinking, so if anyone were to decide against his client, it would be a sad day indeed for the world.

Runaway Jury does everything right for most of the film. We never know who is on whose side; everyone – even those we think are the good guys – seems to have his own plans and we don’t know just where they’ll end up. Most importantly, it appears to be exercising both sides of the gun control issue, which is highly uncommon in Hollywood - a place where they expend thousands of rounds of fake ammunition to make a profit, then tell everyone else they shouldn't use guns.

It’s not until the last few minutes, and we find out what everyone is up to, that we realize the movie’s real agenda, and it becomes one of the most blatantly politically correct pieces of claptrap since Bowling for Columbine.

We don’t have a problem with filmmakers making their own views evident in their movies (that’s how they express themselves and that’s fine), but we shouldn’t have it shoved down our throats to the point of being choked. It gets in the way of the art. And the fact that every single individual thinker in the film is portrayed as evil makes it that much worse.

But to be fair, the movie is very well made, with excellent performances all around, a well-written script, and excellent direction by Gary Fleder. It’s nice to see Hollywood legends Hackman and Hoffman finally share the screen together, even if the writers had to create a brand-new scene (that wasn’t in John Grisham’s book) to make it to happen.

Runaway Jury is an entertaining thriller that would be a lot better if it didn’t have a political agenda. Well recommended if you’re just looking for a good courtroom drama.

The DVD is very nicely done. Video is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen; the color is crisp and the detail sharp. Blacks aren’t too dark, whites don’t drown anything out, there’s excellent skin tone, and no halo effect or grain. A few scenes look a little soft, but otherwise the picture is very good.

Audio is much more reserved, with the front channels doing most of the work. Dialog, score, and most sound effects all come from the front of the room, while the occasional sound effect and bits of the music make their way from the rear. They all coexist peacefully, without any one element hogging too much of your eardrums.

Gary Fleder provides an audio commentary for the film, and it’s not bad, but what we really want to hear is the scene-specific commentary by Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. These two screen powerhouses (having won a pair of Oscars each) seem like they’d be great guys to work with. Smart, funny, and experienced, it’s always nice to hear what actors like these two have to say about the filmmaking process, and the fact that they throw in a few of their amusing anecdotes doesn’t hurt, either.

There are a few deleted scenes as well, with optional commentary by Fleder, but since the movie is already 127 minutes long, it’s not hard to understand why these scenes were cut.

Over 20 minutes of rehearsal footage and interviews with Hackman and Hoffman is also present, as well as five shorter featurettes on acting, cinematography, production design, editing, and making-of.

Runaway Jury, from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
127 minutes, anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) 16x9 enhanced, Dolby Digital 5.1
Starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz
Produced by Arnon Milchan, Gary Fleder, Christopher Mankiewicz
Screenplay by Brian Koppelman & David Levien and Rick Cleveland and Matthew Chapman, Directed by Gary Fleder

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