Our Rating: 3.50
What was trash-con kingpin Rupert Murdoch thinking in letting his 20th Century Fox release a movie so unabashedly liberal? The culpability of gun manufacturers in shooting deaths is the fulcrum of a Grisham-derived potboiler that shows 12 jurors deciding the fate of a potentially precedent-setting damages award. Meanwhile, a mole (John Cusack) with uncertain motives schemes to throw the verdict in one direction or the other. As a high-powered jury consultant retained by the defense, Gene Hackman does typically fine work, rescuing the film from its clunkier bits of dialogue (like a huffy-puffy confrontation between his character and the folksy plaintiff’s attorney, played by Dustin Hoffman). The plot retains its mystery for far longer than one would expect, along with an essential veneer of impartiality — but both are abandoned in the atrocious final act, which not only ties the whole messy tale up in a ribbon of improbable camaraderie, but, worse, implies that the cause of advancing society justifies any methods. To the contrary: We progressives have to adhere to a higher code of conduct. Otherwise, how could we hope to lose all the time?
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2003.