Runaway Jury: Review By B. Alan Orange

Hell Mission Statement #40050: Runaway Jury

A snail on the sidewalk where I used to crack and squash them, a salamander destined for the dissection lab, or a single celled organism with growth potential. Those are my only reincarnation options at this point. I haven't acc*mulated enough man hours in suffering to opt for something greater on the evolutionary scale. Not even an AIDS monkey. F*ck it. Bring the pain. Show me Runaway Jury and Texas Chainsaw Massacre back-to-back. I think I can hack it.

I made a deal with my anguish counselor, Mavis. If I dig rocks for sixteen hours a day, nine days a week, I can still go to the movies (consider, though, that one minute lasts a lifetime down here). Swollen, blistered hands be damned, I will see Radio! Great. But this entertainment agreement inked in blood entails that, if the film is enjoyable, the experience won't be. And if it's bad, well�Bad cinema is Hell, so there won't be much of a difference there. It's that simple.

I signed the agreement�

Now I'm shoveling gravel with an attractive newlywed couple that died on their honeymoon. They thought it would be fun to rob a store in Jamaica. While doing just that, they ended up killing sixteen people ala Mickey and Mallory, along with bringing about their own untimely demise. I'm busy scooping up sixteen tons of granite, and they're all over each other. Kissing and rubbing and humping. Once again, I'm the third wheel. Call it part of my punishment; plus they keep knocking thick dust back into my hole. It makes me question my former existence. Why was I even born? I see no difference between then and now, except that I'm doing non-stop hard labor. I'm still standing at the back of two lovers with nothing to show for it except some well dug trenches and an oozing scab on the palm of my left hand.

After a week of backbreaking work, I was ushered headfirst into Runaway Jury. Ah, relaxation. Wrong. First, sitting next to me with the armrest up, I'm inundated with another affectionate couple. The guy is ass ugly. He resembles a burnt match scarred with really bad acne, and his hair looks like a wig made from flea-infested cat hair. But his chick is smoking hot. Hotter than Anne Suzuki. How did he manage this maneuver? He didn't. It's a queer set-up by Satan to make me feel lonelier and more worthless than when I was shoveling gravel with Ken and Barbie. These new lovers are only here to make my night more excruciating. They start in with the annoying chitchat, pulling beach balls out of a bag. The girl half-inflates the two balls so "Ugly Man" can use them as back support; all the while they smooch these long saliva-filled kisses that would make a vomit-slurping Brundle Fly lose his lunch. What else can I do but get up and move? Nothing. That's exactly what I did.

I shot myself down to the front row. Another couple sat next to me. Again, the guy is frightening. He literally looks like he fell out off a Crumb comic book. He wears a purple sweater that matches his ass-awful purple clogs. And he smells like he's chewing on whatever horrible plant they make patchouli out of. The woman he's with is half his age, maybe 22. She's a model. Beautiful beyond belief. I decide to suffer the stench. But then, the Kill Bill trailer comes on. Both of them start making audible sound effects for every punch thrown on screen. Yikes. Then they peck at each other's cheeks like a couple of dry, water-starved birds. Hate swells up inside me. I had to dodge this wiggy scene before the film started. I just had to.

I jumped out of my seat and ran to the top rows. Solace, I thought. Until a gorilla came and sat directly behind me. I'm not talking about a huge man with an attitude problem. I'm talking about a real life ape. He grunted and snorted, kicking and punching at the back of my chair the whole time. It was here that I realized; it doesn't matter where I sit. My soul is doomed.

Not that a gorilla ripping at the back of my seat diminished the overall enjoyment of Runaway Jury. I'm not sure I would have liked it much more had I been sitting alone, in an empty theater, sans two lopsided couples that couldn't keep their hands off each other and one giant primate with an attention deficiency disorder. I'm not much for lawyer themed flicks that mostly take place in a courtroom anyway. More times than most, they're boring and unsympathetic. Not since Judd Nelson's From the Hip have I actually admired a pledge-pleeding crime thriller. The experience here is a mediocre one. Call it: Middle of the road. Certainly not worth digging ditches for; it's solely a take it or leave it indication of how much I really don't care. I watched it. I was distracted for a while. But I didn't take anything from the experience; not one little iota of delectation to look back upon later.

Again, this was another instance of not knowing anything about the film at hand before sitting down in front of it. The plot had escaped me, as did the insurmountable cast of thousands supporting the piece. Before I'd left home, The Ghost of River Phoenix told me he read the book. He thought it was decent. When I asked him what it was about, he told me, "Big Tobacco."

So I'm sitting in my seat expecting to watch a fixed jury debate the cruelty of cancer and its inherent effects on those people that didn't know any better about the dangers of smoking. I see Dylan McDermott and think to myself, "Isn't he supposed to be starring in Wonderland? How did he wander over here? Did he get lost on his way back from the concession stand? Why isn't his name in opening credits? Isn't this guy some sort of big star?" We watch the man attend his young son's birthday party. This is inner-cut with scenes of him going to work. Is he a lawyer? Doesn't he play one on TV? Is this type casting? He looks a little too contemporary not to know the dangers associated with a pack of cigarettes. Hmm? This movie is already starting on a down note. It looks excruciatingly boring. Aren't Gorillas only supposed to show up at the awesome, breathtaking shows that make me want to wet my pants? Yes, I think that's part of the agreement I signed with my half chewed-off finger�

Without warning, things take a turn for the worse as Runaway Jury literally flip-flops and morphs into the Terminator. You know that part where Arnold walks into the police station and says, "I'll be back." He leaves only to return with machine guns ablaze. That's exactly what happens here. And Dylan McDermott gets shot right in the face. Is this a metaphor for smoking? Did I miss something on my way to the inauguration ball? What's going on here? If you're a Dylan fan, and you're seeing this solely for his coy presence, you'll be disappointed. It's a Christmas stocking full of coal and walnuts. He clocks in at a mere two minutes before biting the piss biscuit.

After McDermott's quick demise, the film jumps ahead a year or two. The next image on screen is an old man in a mossy, rotting fountain smoking a Virginia Slim. It just looks bad. The guy's inches away from death, he's trolling around in swamp water, and he's couching up thick black mucus. So I guess the movie "is" about big tobacco, right? Nope. This is just a "cleaver" homage to what the book used to be about. It seems they've switched things around on us here quite a bit. There is one other "cigarette" sequence where people get in an uproar about indoor puffing, but its only in place for dry humor and a sly backhanded smack against the cheek of California's smoking law.

The main cusp of the plot remains the same. A couple of quiet kids hack into our vulnerable jury system and try to sway the vote from deep inside courtroom walls. The prosecution team that comes up the highest bidder will get the verdict in their favor. It's like a fixed game of XFL or bowling. That part of the story remains true to its roots in novel form. It's the actual case they're trying to swing that's changed-up in exhilarating bits of fancy for no apparent reason. Instead of Big Tobacco, Dustin Hoffman, dolling out a rather reserved Cajun Accent, goes up against a group of gun manufactures in a theme similar to next week's Elephant: Stopping Bullet Violence. This switching of gears only goes to prove one thing. The actual case itself isn't important to the story. It could be about anything. I think they rearranged the arrangement because of what The Insider did in terms of dealing with identical material. What they're debating and judging is not a concern of those present. This is strictly a cat and mouse game that doesn't play to a higher need. A jury is manipulated, a hearing is won. Be it guns, tobacco, rock music, or rape; Runaway Jury is about fixing odds the old fashion way. It's not about the heartfelt outcry of an abused plaintiff.

We've seen this kind of thing before, but the way John Cusack and Rachael Weisz go about crashing the system while staying one foot ahead of the bad guys is unique to the genre. They actually manage to juice some excitement out of what becomes a rather biased time in the seat. Their intrinsic ducking and dodging is fun to watch, but it can't save this overlong Gresham workhorse. It's the type of movie where opening credits are still coming up fifteen minutes into the actual plot itself. This was a little distracting. Save that sh*t for later. I'm not going to care who edited or wrote the film until after it's over. Let me watch the movie and decide if I want to know who these people are when its time to leave, okay?

One of the things working in Runaway Jury's favor is its huge cast of thousands. They're trotted out one after the other in a wave of, "Look at us, we're special!" We've got Cusack, Weisz, Hoffman, McDermott, Gene Hackman, Jennifer Beals, the list just goes on and on�I mean, Louis Guzman is a member of the jury. Sitting in the courtroom, starring at that little midget, I'd have to know something was afoot. This just screams "MOVIE!" It's not realistic in the least bit, but that's why we go in droves.

Basically what it comes down to is: I just couldn't get myself interested in the material. And there are some blaring inconsistencies. When we first meet Cusack, we don't know what he's doing. He makes it a point to convince us, the audience, that he doesn't actually want Jury Duty. There's no one else around, yet he whines and whimpers about having to go. Why? Because he's trying to assure you and I that this is a burden to him. Only us; and no one else. (He doesn't know we're watching him�Or does he?) I could see him trying to dupe the judge and the lawyers into thinking he's uninterested in the case, which he also does. But why is he trying to trick us? We're on his side. This is false drama that makes little sense.

Then there's the whole beginning with his girlfriend Rachael Weisz. When we first see her, she's shopping in the same voodoo shop as Cusack. They pretend not to know each other. It's strictly for our benefit. Again, they're trying to mislead the audience when there is no reason to be doing this. It's done here solely to set up another scene where John knows he's being watched by Gene Hackman's people. We see Weisz, not yet knowing that she's John's girlfriend, sneaking around as if she's part of Hackman's army. It's all dumb and employed to keep us off track. None of these shenanigans directly affect anyone inside the actual story itself. It's horrible, pointless audience manipulation.

And what's with Gene Hackman's Batcave? He's set up this elaborate surveillance dungeon seemingly underneath the court. That's dumb. One minute he's standing in front of the judge, the next minute he's down in his cubby hole. It's as if he "Bamf"s there like the mutant Nightcrawler. He's not a superhero; he's a douche bag. Why doesn't the film treat him as such? There's no real validity to these proceedings. There's no possible way Hackman and his stealthy militia of sh*t-f*cks could run a business out of a courthouse. It's all a little too spy-gamy to believe. And the tear-jerker ending comes so far out of left field as to clock us in the tender temple, leaving us to leak brain fluid on the rug�

Why, oh, why do I continue wasting my time at the picture show? Surely there's a better trade off for digging ditches, right? It doesn't matter. My fate is sealed. Its rocks and Runaway Jury from here on out. I might as well get used to that fact.

There will never be another sunny day in the life of B. Alan Orange. God forbid I should find a bucket of ice cream. Eating it would probably rot my jaw off. I'm not really using it, so what do I care.

If you, too, like to torture yourself, then make John Grisham's latest adaptation a must see. You'll be pleasantly pained�