Juror #2 (2024) review

Magazine writer (and recovering alcoholic) Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) - whose schoolteacher wife Allison (Zoey Deutch) is pregnant - is selected to be a member of the jury for a homicide case in which James Michael Sythe (Gabriel Basso) is accused of killing his girlfriend Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) after a fight at a bar called Rowdy's Hideaway ... except when hearing the testimony, Justin remembers he was also there that very same rainy night and thinks he might have hit her with his vehicle.  Although it falls into the (typically) American trap of believing that in the courtroom "all truths will be revealed" and order will be restored - call it the Perry Mason Effect - and contains multiple shots of Lady Justice to slam home that sentiment, this is a confident and meticulously paced effort from the 94-year-old auteur: the cast is consistently solid (this includes J. K. Simmons as a retired detective-turned-florist and Kiefer Sutherland as an attorney) and it even playfully "borrows" from 12 Angry Men for the scenes in which the diverse jury members heatedly discuss the trial.  Part of me wanted to see Justin "get away with it" and fix his life ... but he made it a little too easy for ambitious prosecutor Faith (Toni Collette) to hunt him down: the journalist doth protested too much, methinks....