‘Runaway Author’ might be a better title – for all movies based on John Grisham novels. These are B-movies in A-movie clothing. Grisham’s bombastic, conspiracy-at-every-turn writings make for high drama, peppered with ridiculous poseur lines, and sure to have you urgently hoping the protagonist will overcome the nasty powers aligned against him. Only later do you realize how simplistic the manipulation has been, how ham-handedly the good and bad guys have been drawn, and how silly it is to be so swept up in a story befitting soap opera. Yet it works almost every time. And Runaway Jury succeeds as well as any of them.
Grisham’s stories are ridiculous, but by creating a brave hero to battle sheer evil against all odds, he makes it difficult for us to not to go with it. And that’s the case here – made extra delicious by the fact that, while the baddest of the bad guys is apparent – Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman), jury consultant to the firearms industry, is a cold- blooded, amoral legal manipulator who only cares about winning – it’s not initially clear who the good guy is – unless you count the whimpering widow of a stockbroker killed with a semi-automatic gun. Grisham and director Gary Fleder (Don’t Say a Word, Kiss the Girls) toy with us, leaving us to figure out whether attorney for the plaintiff Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman) is good or bad, and whether juror Nicholas Easter (John Cusack) and his buddy Marlee (Rachel Weisz) are as rotten as they first seem. By the time it’s clear, we’ve had enough fun with the red herrings and deception that the Grisham bombast is infinitely easier to take. This round-about route to the truth, combined with strong performances, makes Runaway Jury a lot of fun, even with Grisham’s overly-simplistic portrayal of good and evil and his obsession with conspiracy.
Rohr is out to find Vicksburg Firearms partially responsible for the murder of the stockbroker. Clearly, you’re supposed to be cheering against the gun company – scummy crooks, who set out – with Fitch as their agent – to buy the verdict. Rohr stands against them, but a wildcard is thrown into the mix when Easter and Marlee intervene, telling both sides that they control the jury and a cool $10 million is what it’ll cost to swing the verdict. It’s Grisham’s dream come true – conspiracy piled on top of conspiracy – and it’s fun to watch as Fitch’s slick team of spies, analysts and enforcers tries to neutralize Easter and Marlee. And then there’s Rohr, struggling with the choice between buying a guilty verdict or living with the likelihood that the other side will win due to their deep pockets and shallow morals.
It’s melodramatic and overblown, but too much fun to dislike. Hackman gets to do most of the scenery-chewing, and he’s up to the task, shouting out all sorts of silly lines: “If you’re relying on witnesses to win this case, then you’ve already lost it,” he proclaims. “Trials are too important to be left up to juries.” Hoffman has a less bombastic role, and does rather well as the tormented good lawyer, conveying his struggle well without being half as loud as Hackman. Cusack is also rather understated as the manipulator on the inside, but it’s Weisz who does perhaps the best of all – as the cool extortionist who’s more complicated than her surface indicates.
Runaway Jury is a B-movie melodrama, but it’s one that’s so nicely put together and so competently acted that you’re likely to come away satisfied even if you’re also embarrassed at being so easily manipulated.
B-movie melodrama, but one that’s so nicely put together and competently acted that you’ll come away satisfied even if you’re also embarrassed at being so easily manipulated.
