Runaway Jury

A tame and routine staging of one big trial and the associated string-pulling outside the courtroom. It has a stellar cast featuring Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman, but lacks in emphasis, more sophisticated grip and memorable scenes. Purely average, a nineties movie shot a decade too late. (02/10/2021)

Another tale from the pen of John Grisham on the subject of courtroom drama, this time focusing ostentatiously on the jurors and ways of influencing them. It's not quite a typical courtroom drama, as the flip side of the whole case comes to the fore here, and the trial itself is presented only as a formal guarantee of justice for the public and the media. The decision-making and the most important part of the trial here takes place in an ultra-gray zone, which contributes to the much larger impression of a courtroom thriller and at some points even breathtaking action scenes (within the courtroom drama genre definitely). As a whole, Runaway Jury is unfortunately oddly uneven, which prevents me from ranking it among the top films from the courtroom setting. But if you seek out genre films with a similar tone, you should definitely not miss this. Within the genre, it's still strongly above average. (16/12/2018)