legal thriller
The legal thriller genre is a type of crime fiction genre that focuses on the proceedings of the investigation, with particular reference to the impacts on courtroom proceedings and the lives of characters.
The courtroom proceedings and legal a ...
film directed by
Gary Fleder
Gary Fleder (; born December 19, 1965) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His most recently completed film, '' Homefront,'' was released by Open Road Films and Millennium Films in November 2013. In recent years he has bee ...
and starring
John Cusack
John Paul Cusack (; born June 28, 1966)(28 June 1996)Today's birthdays '' Santa Cruz Sentinel'', ("Actors John Cusack is 30") is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and political activist. He is a son of filmmaker Dick Cusack, and his o ...
,
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is an American retired actor and former novelist. In a career that has spanned more than six decades, Hackman has won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, two BAFTAs ...
,
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is ...
, and
Rachel Weisz
Rachel Hannah Weisz (; born 7 March 1970 ) is an English actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and a BAFTA Award.
Weisz began acting in British stage and television in th ...
The Runaway Jury
''The Runaway Jury'' is a legal thriller novel written by American author John Grisham. It was Grisham's seventh novel. The hardcover first edition was published by Doubleday Books in 1996 (). Pearson Longman released the graded reader edition ...
'', the film pits lawyer Wendell Rohr (Hoffman) against shady jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Hackman), who uses unlawful means to stack the jury with people sympathetic to the defense. Meanwhile, a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game begins when juror Nicholas Easter (Cusack) and his girlfriend Marlee (Weisz) appear to be able to sway the jury into delivering any verdict they want in a trial against a gun manufacturer. The film was released October 17, 2003.
machine pistol
A machine pistol is an autoloading pistol capable of fully automatic fire. The term can also be used to describe a stockless handgun-style submachine gun. The term is a calque of ''Maschinenpistole'', the German word for submachine guns. Machi ...
at a stock brokerage firm. Eleven people are killed and several others wounded in the incident. Among the dead is Jacob Wood. Two years later, with attorney Wendell Rohr, Jacob's widow Celeste takes Vicksburg Firearms to court on the grounds that the company's
gross negligence
Gross negligence is the "lack of slight diligence or care" or "a conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party." In some jurisdictions a person injured as a result of gross negl ...
led to her husband's death. During jury selection, jury consultant Rankin Fitch and his team communicate background information on each of the jurors through electronic surveillance to defense attorney Durwood Cable, who is in the courtroom.
In the jury pool, Nick Easter attempts to get himself excused from jury duty. Judge Frederick Harkin refuses, claiming he's giving him a lesson in civic duty, and Fitch tells Cable that the judge has now given them no choice but to select Nick as a juror. Nick's congenial manner wins over his fellow jurors, but Frank Herrera, a Marine veteran, takes an instant dislike to him.
A woman named Marlee makes an offer to Fitch and Rohr by phone: she will deliver the desired verdict to the first bidder. Rohr dismisses the offer, assuming it to be a tactic by Fitch to obtain a mistrial. Fitch asks for proof that she can deliver, though, which she provides by asking if he "feels patriotic" and then having the jury pledge allegiance to the flag. By observing the jurors' behaviour through concealed cameras, Fitch identifies Nick as the influencer and orders his apartment to be searched, but finds nothing.
Marlee retaliates by getting one of Fitch's jurors bounced. Fitch then blackmails three jurors, leading Rikki Coleman, to attempt suicide. He also sends his men to find a concealed storage device in Nick's apartment with key information, after which they set fire to it. Nick shows the judge video footage of Fitch's men breaking into his apartment, and the judge orders the jury sequestered.
Rohr's key witness, a former Vicksburg employee, doesn't show up. After confronting Fitch, Rohr decides that he cannot win the case. He asks his firm's partners for $10 million to pay Marlee. Fitch sends an operative, Janovich, to kidnap Marlee, but she fights him off and raises the price to $15 million. On principle, Rohr changes his mind and refuses to pay. After the CEO of Vicksburg Firearms loses his temper under cross-examination as a witness and makes a bad impression on the jury, Fitch agrees to pay Marlee to be certain of the verdict.
Fitch's subordinate Doyle, who is investigating Nick, finds that Nick is, in fact, Jeff Kerr, a law school drop-out. He then travels to Gardner, Indiana, where Jeff and his law school girlfriend Gabby (i.e., Marlee) both come from. Doyle gently quizzes Gabby's mother, who reveals that Gabby's sister died in a shooting years ago when she was in high school. At the time, the town of Gardner sued the manufacturer of the guns used and lost; Fitch had helped the defense win the case. Doyle concludes that Nick and Marlee's offer is a set-up, and he calls Fitch, but it is too late as the money has already been paid.
After Nick receives confirmation of the payment, he asks the other jurors to review the facts, saying they owe it to Celeste Wood to deliberate. This causes Herrera to launch into a rant against the plaintiff, which undermines any support he had from the other jurors. The gun manufacturer is found liable, with the jury awarding $110 million in general damages to Celeste Wood.
After the trial, Nick and Marlee confront Fitch with a receipt for the $15 million bribe, which they will make public unless he retires. Fitch asks Nick how he got the jury to vote for the plaintiff; Nick replies that he didn't, explaining that he stopped Fitch from stealing the trial merely by getting the jury to vote with their hearts. Nick and Marlee inform an indignant Fitch that the $15 million "fee" will benefit the shooting victims in Gardner.
Cast
Production
In August 1996, Arnon Milchan and distribution partner
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
paid a record $8 million for the rights to the novel and first-look rights to Grisham's next novel. Directors slated to helm the picture included
Joel Schumacher
Joel T. Schumacher (; August 29, 1939June 22, 2020) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Raised in New York City by his mother, Schumacher graduated from Parsons School of Design and originally became a fashion designer. He ...
Edward Norton
Edward Harrison Norton (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award and three Academy Award nominations.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised ...
and
Will Smith
Willard Carroll Smith II (born September 25, 1968), also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor and rapper. He began his acting career starring as a fictionalized version of himself on the NBC sitcom '' The Fresh ...
.The Runaway Jury /ref> The novel's focus on big tobacco was retained until the 1999 film '' The Insider'' was released, necessitating a plot change from tobacco to gun companies.
Reception
Box office
The film made $11.8 million in its opening weekend, finishing third. It went on to gross $49.4 million in the United States and a total of $80.2 million worldwide.Runaway Jury - Box Office Data, Movie News, Cast Information - The Numbers /ref>
Critical response
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 73% based on 162 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site calls the film "an implausible but entertaining legal thriller." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, it has weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 38 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore
CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data.
Background
Ed Mintz founded Ci ...
gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
gave the film three out of four stars and stated that the plot to sell the jury to the highest-bidding party was the most ingenious device in the story because it avoided pitting the "evil" and the "good" protagonists directly against each other in a stereotypical manner, but it plunged both of them into a moral abyss.Runaway Jury' review"
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...