JUROR #2

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Clint Eastwood's promising courtroom drama loses to a last scene misstep that costs the picture everything.

Nicholas Hoult presents a winning terse performance undermined by his character Justin Kemp's faulty moral code.

It would be telling tales out of school to reveal plot points, but suffice it to say that Justin Kemp is a young family man who shows up at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The plot thickens when Justin is called upon to be a juror on a case that he is personally connected to.

In session our jurors reveal personal biases while falling in line to which ever way the tide turns.

Neat sub-plot energy comes from the always great J.K. Simmons, here playing an ex-sheriff juror.

"Juror #2" is a suspenseful ride that goes on for one scene too long.

There is a pattern among recent dramas to feature the once maligned "European ending," in which the audience is left with an ambiguous finale.

"Hard Truths," "Last Summer," and "Small Things Like These" are three other culprits in the currently popular ambiguous ending club.

Rated PG-13. 114 mins.

ANATOMY OF A FALL — CANNES 2023

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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"Pueblo chico, infierno grande" translates to small town, big hell.

Such is the remote French community of Grenoble that German outsider Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) finds herself when her troubled husband Samuel Maleski seemingly commits suicide.

The townspeople refuse to accept that their hometown boy could have offed himself. The interloper wife must have murdered Samuel (played by Samuel Theis).

This is one brilliantly written and directed courtroom drama.

Sandra is a successful author, Samuel is a university lecturer; jealousy rattles the relationship.

Sharp dialogue and tricky plot twists keep you on the hook.

"Anatomy of a Fall" won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2023, so you know you're in for a treat.

Sandra Hüller gives a riveting performance in this slow-burn drama.

Ice is the only thing in the world that is what it's cracked up to be, until blood melts it, that is.

Rated R. 151 mins.

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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Glib. Forgettable. Writer/director Aaron Sorkin gets out his arsenal of narrative formula templates to simplify an otherwise complex story of ‘60s era political theater. The effect is entertaining up to a point before it hits you that Robert Altman would have been much better at telling the story at hand if he were still alive. Hell, Oliver Stone would have done a better job.

The trial in question arose from the actions of a group of anti-Vietnam War protesters during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The film’s ensemble of actors (Yaha Abdul-Mateen II, Sacha Baron Cohen, Daniel Flaherty, Joseph Gordon, Levitt, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, Eddie Redmayne, Mark Rylance, Jeremy Strong, and John Carroll Lynch) give credible performances that come across as an afterthought in the context of Sorkin’s heavy hand.

Courtroom dramas are a notoriously prickly genre to begin with. This one finds Aaron Sorkin falling on his own sword. The movie plays more as a showpiece of Hollywood machinery than as a filmic document of a crisis of ideologies at a time when it seemed that the People might get a leg up on the corruption at the heart of the American war machine. As if such a thing could be possible.

From a technical standpoint, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” is serviceable but Sorkin’s knee-jerk quick-cutting crutch wears out its welcome. Aaron Sorkin’s motivations for making the movie in our current political climate seems like a foregone conclusion. Nothing has the emotional weight it purports to possess even if the actors are compelling in their roles as voices of dissent. The problem is that Sorkin wants so badly to deliver a feel-good movie that he misses all of the heartbreak inflicted on the accused activists who never agreed on anything. This is a Cheese Whiz movie for 12-year-olds, not for adults.  

Rated R. 129 mins.