BuzzFlash Reviews

December 2004

DVD: "Runaway Jury" (Widescreen Edition)

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

We've been meaning to offer this riveting DVD for sometime. With Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, John Cusack, Jeremy Piven, and Rachel Weisz, the acting is superb.

But it's the political and social climate of the courtroom drama that make this a top BuzzFlash Choice. We should say first that this is based on a John Grisham thriller, and a thriller it is. It's hard to keep pace with the twists and turns that take place in the exotic New Orleans setting. Hackman is absolutely chilling as the unethical, evil jury manipulator who will stop at nothing to "control a jury" to achieve an outcome favorable to his client, in this case the gun industry.

Dustin Hoffman is believable and charming as a southern lawyer who takes on the "lost cause" case of a woman whose husband was killed by a gun that shouldn't have been in the assailant's hands.

For those who think the gun control debate is just about the Second Amendment, this movie is a testimonial that the profit motive of gun makers has more to do with the blood on our streets than the Constitution. Halliburton could just as easily have been Hackman's client as a consortium of gun makers.

But don't look at the film as didactic.

Fasten your seat belt. It's a good ride.

You want the good men and women on the jury to prevail, and you want Hackman and the gun makers to get their comeuppance, but you just don't know who to trust. Until the end that is, when suddenly it comes to a finale at blistering speed. The speed of a bullet, so to speak.

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS