neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Runaway Jury
	Gary Fleder John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Bruce Davison, Bruce McGill, Jeremy Piven 2003		Sometimes, the opportunity to watch specific actors as they face off against one another is enough of a reason to endorse a movie. Hence, the enticing concept of the "all-star cast." "Runaway Jury," a film based on yet another lawyer-driven courtroom thriller by best-selling author John Grisham, is one of those situations where stellar players make a dubious play better. Those players — John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weisz — bring legitimacy to "Runaway Jury," which is constructed around an implausible cat-and-mouse game between opponents in a high-profile New Orleans court case. The plot spins on a wrongful-death suit brought against a gun manufacturer by a woman whose husband was a murder victim. But this is no mere popcorn-muncher when you have Hackman, as a ruthless consultant on the side of the gun company, baiting Hoffman, as the opposition attorney, while Cusack, as a member of the jury, tries to control and direct his fellow jurors with the help of Weisz, as a driven, resourceful woman working in the shadows. Faster than you can say "jury-tampering," "Runaway Jury" gets preposterous. Even if the production is ultimately guilty of talent abuse, it's good sport.