Netflix And Chill: Runaway Jury (2003)

Note: I watched this film yesterday on UK Netflix, ready for thos review to be written today. Yesterday was the last day that Runaway Jury was available on the service here in the UK. Such is the fickle nature of streaming services.

Like many films from the '90s and 2000s, Runaway Jury now feels like a more comforting watch today than it did when first released. It's based on a John Grisham novel, coming along as seemingly the last major attempt to wring more money out of his legal thrillers (until they inevitably come back into fashion at some point), it has a fantastic ensemble cast anchored by two star turns from a couple of acting legends, and it delivers some tension and thrills without needing to shoehorn in any major action set-pieces.

Everything revolves around a trial that sees a woman trying to win a case against a firearms company. Nobody ever wins when they take on the gun industry, but some people hold on to the hope that this case could turn the tide. The one with the most hope is attorney Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), although that becomes harder to hang onto as he battles against tactics used by jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman). Fitch and his team are bemused by one particular juror though, Nick Easter (John Cusack), and it soon becomes clear how important he is when they are contacted by a woman (Marlee, played by Rachel Weisz) who claims that she can deliver whatever verdict is needed for a big fee.

Adapted into screenplay form by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, Rick Cleveland, and Matthew Chapman, Runaway Jury is full of enjoyable lines of dialoge that are uttered with plenty of energy and power by leads clearly enjoying themselves in their roles. Director Gary Fleder may not put any stamp on the visual style of the film, but he does well to simply stay out of the way of his cast as they do their thing.

What can be said about Hackman that hasn't already been said many times over the years? The world of cinema was undoubtedly better while he was a part of it, and he's absolutely fantastic as the devious and relentless Fitch. Hoffman steps up his game for the scenes shared with Hackman, but he also spends a lot of the runtime focusing on his accent and trying to be almost childishly idealistic. Cusack is a lot of fun in what may well be the last film to make good use of the charm and wit that he used to have in every role, and Weisz enjoys herself in scenes that show her scheming and working hard to maintain an advantage against the powerful people she is dealing with. I won't go into detail on their characters, but the supporting cast includes the likes of Bruce Davison, Bruce McGill, Jeremy Piven, Cliff Curtis, Nick Searcy, Rhoda Griffis, Leland Orser, Nestor Serrano, Jennifer Beals, Gerry Bamman, Bill Nunn, Rusty Schwimmer, Orlando Jones, Luis Guzmán, and Dylan McDermott. If you don't recognise all of those names, trust me, you should recognise most of their faces.

Okay, it's not the best of the Grisham blockbusters (I think we all know that the "first wave" of movies adapted from his work gave us the best films), but this is a fantastic bit of entertainment. It's polished, it's intriguing, it has some obvious twists and turns that prove satisfying by the time everything is resolved, and the 127-minute runtime never drags, thanks in no small part to the feeling that you're never too far away from another great moment for Hackman, Hoffman, or Cusack. It's not one I think about too often, but it's one I am surprisingly happy to rewatch whenever the opportunity arises.

7/10

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Rounders (1998)

Not actually a film about the British game that resembles a kindergarten version of baseball, Rounders is actually another fun film basing most of the action around card tables. It's all about poker, and the people who make their living from it. It's also helmed by John Dahl, a director who very rarely put a foot wrong for his first full decade or so of moviemaking, before he then started picking up much more work int he world of TV (helming episodes of shows as varied as Fear Itself, Breaking Bad, True Blood, Justified, Ray Donovan, House Of Cards, and Yellowstone).

Matt Damon plays Mike McDermott, a promising young law student who has a pretty good life. He has a lovely partner, Jo (Gretchen Mol), and has decided to try and leave his days of poker behind him, after losing a BIG chunk of money in a foolish move to earn himself a route to the World Poker Championship. Abstaining from the lure of poker proves to be almost impossible, sadly, when Mike welcomes his old friend, Worm (Edward Norton), back into his life. Worm has just finished a prison sentence, and he immediately wants to make up lost time and earnings. Not trusting the playing method of Mike, Worm is happy to win via some underhanded methods. He's also happy to borrow a lot of money with Mike as his guarantor. 

Considering what it is, poker makes for a fair amount of fun and tension, cinematically. Part of that is because movie poker often has people sitting around a table with hands that are often astronomically near-impossible to have dealt from the deck in the same game session, let along the same tense head to head, and part of that is to do with the interesting ways in which great poker players can be shown to be able to read their opponents and quickly calculate odds. Writers David Levien and Brian Koppelman make the most of this latter aspect, having Damon's character be quite the card savant. This is best illustrated by a superb scene in which he helps a judge (Martin Landau) bet high against his colleagues, explaining who is holding what cards in their hands. The use of Worm is another way to make things more exciting though, ensuring that the card games have real stakes. More than just chips and pride, a loss could lead to a lot of pain. And Worm's approach to the game, trying every grift possible to ensure a win, helps to make the lead character seem more like a true sportsman, an expert looking to relearn some lessons after being humbled by a major loss.

Dahl knows what he's doing here, easily keeping things lively and fun for viewers. You get to see cards, you get a peek at the mechanics of some of the trickery, and voiceover narration from Damon keeps everyone informed about the rules, the odds, and the methodology. The film maintains an energy and level of cinematic cool for almost the entire runtime.

While the lead role isn’t really a stretch for Damon, he does well playing another brand of genius without the social lubrication to keep a position in an upper-class world. Norton is very easy to dislike, also doing well as the kind of character destined to forever try too hard for success in a way that guarantees failure after failure. Mol is as underserved here as she has been so often, but she gives a performance so good that it makes you wonder why she never seemed to get a bigger break that others got, although she has built up a great body of work over the years. Landau steals the few scenes he has, John Turturro gets to play a fairly nice guy, for once, and John Malkovich is fun, with an added accent, as Teddy KGB, the big poker player who needs beaten on the way to a complete turnaround of fortune. There is also a small role for Famke Janssen, who is always welcome, and a cameo from poker superstar Johnny Chan.

It’s quite easy to see where this is going, and the lack of any major surprises in the third act is a bit of a shame, but Rounders doesn’t want to be a gritty and bleak film. It is a by-the-numbers sports movie, a tale of someone having faith in himself as others fall by the wayside. That sport may be poker, as opposed to any number of more energetic pursuits, but every other trope and story beat you expect is right here. Which ends up being a good thing, because this is one of the better sports movies I have watched in a while, but that may be to do with my love of poker.

8/10

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Prime Time: Walking Tall (2004)

Based on a film that was based on a strange and enjoyable true story, Walking Tall is a good star vehicle for Dwayne Johnson (still billed here as “The Rock” while he grew into his movie stardom), even if it’s far from a perfect movie.

Johnson is Chris Vaughn, a man who returns home after years spent in the military. The mill has closed, his old friend (Neal McDonough) has bought up lots of businesses, and something stinks. Problems become obvious when Chris and his friends have a night out at the local casino, where he spies a game being rigged and drugs being sold. The cops aren’t interested, which leads Chris to nominate himself for the position of Sheriff.

Directed by Kevin Bray, the biggest surprise about this movie is that it took about three people to write the simple script. I guess the challenge was fitting the material around Johnson and his co-stars, because the template of the original tale doesn’t seem like it would need a lot of work. There are also very few scenes here that are on the level of dumb fun you would expect from this kind of thing.

Johnson does his thing though, and that makes up for a lot. He is a solid choice for the role, and easily convinces in any of the more physical sequences. McDonough is also very good as the slimy, polished, friend who has turned into quite the powerful businessman. Johnny Knoxville does his amusing sidekick thing, and is just fine, while Kevin Durand is the main henchman squaring off against Johnson during the first half of the movie. Ashley Scott is the required love interest, and cannot do anything to improve her thankless role, but John Beasley and Michael Bowen are enjoyable as, respectively, the father of our leading man and an ineffective cop. Other people flesh out the cast, and Khleo Thomas stands out as the young nephew, Pete, but the film focuses on Johnson and Knoxville doing what they can to battle the baddies.

Certainly not the worst film that Johnson has done, nor is it close to his best, Walking Tall will satisfy people after an easy ninety minutes of action (even if the editing is a bit messy) and general camaraderie between the main characters. 

6/10

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