| release date: | October 17, 2003
Tuesday February 17, 2004 (dvd) |
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| genre: | Drama |
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| running time: | 127 min. |
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| director: | Gary Fleder |
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| studio: | 20th Century Fox |
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| producer(s): | Arnon Milchan, Gary Fleder, Christopher Mankiewicz |
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| screenplay: | Brian Koppleman, David Levien, Rick Cleveland, Matthew Chapman |
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| cast: | John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Bruce McGill, Jeremy Piven, Bruce Davison, Nick Searcy, Jennifer Beals |
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Current Tribute rating:  Rate Movie User Reviews |
Runaway Jury Movie Synopsis
When a young widow in New Orleans brings a civil suit against the powerful corporate consortium she holds responsible for her husband’s murder, she sets in motion a multi-million dollar case. But it’s a suit that may be won even before it begins – based solely on the selection, manipulation and, ultimately, the attempted “theft” of the jury.
Representing the widow is Wendall Rohr (Hoffman), a courtly Southern lawyer with a moral center and a heartfelt passion for the case he’s presenting. His opponent is ostensibly the attorney representing the corporation. But in reality, the defense counsel is only the front man for Rankin Fitch (Hackman), a brilliant and ruthless jury consultant.
At a high tech command center set up in an old French Quarter warehouse, Fitch and his team work on the surveillance and assessment of potential jurors. He will know everything about their lives, and strategically manipulate the jury process. Fitch and Rohr soon realize they’re not the only ones out to win the jury. One of the jurors, Nick Easter (Cusack), seems to have his own plan for swaying the panel. And a mysterious woman known only as Marlee (Weisz) contacts both Rohr and Fitch telling them the jury’s for sale to either of them – and that verdict won’t come cheap.
People that don`t understand legal jargon will still like this film. I don`t really like films that take place in a court room, but I still enjoyed this film. The actos are great, and the story between the jury and the case is pretty good.
It`s too bad that they decided to throw in some gratuitous violence. That wasn`t in the book. The book was so well written and clever -- they should have tried to stick to that instead of changing things that didn`t need to be changed. Disappointing. I don`t know why they don`t let Grisham screenwrite his own books -- when other people get hold of it, they ruin it.
A powerful movie played out through a balance of none of the actors assuming centre stage (superb acting when all of the all star cast know how to take secondary roles to the film itself), also there was a very subtle development of a significant subplot; activism vs/ soft terrorism which reveals what is on America`s mind. This film opens dialogue on not the tried and true perception that justice is blind but rather that our perceptions of justice are blind and this is exampled by the blind juror. A searing portrait of perception in group dynamics and about the true nature of change - in that change takes time; ten years or more to effect cha