John Grisham's novel Runaway Jury is based on the simple proposition that hacking into the jury pool system is an easy matter. Nobody wants jury duty, people simply just do it because it's an obligation like paying taxes. Minimal safeguards are on that computer.
In New York State the rule is now ten years. I just got called in October, promptly and exactly ten years after I'd been called previously. You can't serve, in fact if you are called any time before 10 years prior to your last service, you have the clerks look it up and if you're correct, out you go. But if I said nothing, no one would be any the wiser. So maybe what happens in Runaway Jury might have some basis in fact.
Gene Hackman is more than just a jury consultant. Breaking all laws of privacy, he's on retainer from the gun manufacturer's lobby who are worried about a rash of lawsuits breaking out and somebody collecting on one. Whatever it takes to fix the jury, Hackman's up to it.
But there are a couple of people, one a juror played by John Cusack, one an outsider played by Rachel Weisz who seem to have a game plan all their own. It might just surprise you to find out just what it is.
All this revolves around a wrongful death suit filed by Joanna Going and her attorney Dustin Hoffman about the death of her husband, Dylan McDermott which is shown during a brief prologue. Never have the wheels of justice been so greased by so many different hands.
Nice performances all around in Runaway Jury. Like another author Edna Ferber, it's impossible to make a bad film out of a John Grisham work. Grisham writes so the average lay person can understand and his characters are flawed, but flawed in a way you care about them. See what drives Cusack and Weisz and you'll know what I mean.
Acting honors however go to Gene Hackman. Imagine the outlaw head in The Quick and the Dead running a jury consulting firm and you'll get the idea of what an amoral person Hackman is. It's his own hubris that takes him down though.
Good drama by a good cast, you can't go wrong with Runaway Jury.
In New York State the rule is now ten years. I just got called in October, promptly and exactly ten years after I'd been called previously. You can't serve, in fact if you are called any time before 10 years prior to your last service, you have the clerks look it up and if you're correct, out you go. But if I said nothing, no one would be any the wiser. So maybe what happens in Runaway Jury might have some basis in fact.
Gene Hackman is more than just a jury consultant. Breaking all laws of privacy, he's on retainer from the gun manufacturer's lobby who are worried about a rash of lawsuits breaking out and somebody collecting on one. Whatever it takes to fix the jury, Hackman's up to it.
But there are a couple of people, one a juror played by John Cusack, one an outsider played by Rachel Weisz who seem to have a game plan all their own. It might just surprise you to find out just what it is.
All this revolves around a wrongful death suit filed by Joanna Going and her attorney Dustin Hoffman about the death of her husband, Dylan McDermott which is shown during a brief prologue. Never have the wheels of justice been so greased by so many different hands.
Nice performances all around in Runaway Jury. Like another author Edna Ferber, it's impossible to make a bad film out of a John Grisham work. Grisham writes so the average lay person can understand and his characters are flawed, but flawed in a way you care about them. See what drives Cusack and Weisz and you'll know what I mean.
Acting honors however go to Gene Hackman. Imagine the outlaw head in The Quick and the Dead running a jury consulting firm and you'll get the idea of what an amoral person Hackman is. It's his own hubris that takes him down though.
Good drama by a good cast, you can't go wrong with Runaway Jury.