REVIEW:
Juror #2 was okay. It was enjoyable on a first watch, where you don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I can’t imagine it’s half as good on watches that would come after that. It’s basically a take on 12 Angry Men, with a twist. The twist, of course, is that this guy, (this juror) is the one who did the crime. The 12 Angry Men angle is that he’s trying to convince the other jury members that maybe the guy on trial didn’t do it. That there’s enough doubt there to not convict him.
Here’s the thing… 12 Angry Men is a great movie. It’s a great story. Seeing this jury deliberate in chambers, behind closed doors, and argue their case for why the suspect should or should not be found guilty, is interesting. Now this movie, Juror #2, isn’t nearly as deep of involved as that. It does have the deliberations, but there’s no way to know if this suspect did the crime of a hit and run on his girlfriend, or not.
What we do get in place of all that conversation and kind of changing of the jurors minds, is the story of a man who believes he is the one who did the crime. He was there, at that bar, on the very same night. He was driving away from the place in the rain, in the dark. And he thought he hit something. He got out to check and found nothing there. Thinking it was a deer that got up and ran off, he c got back in his car and continued on. And now he believes it was he who hit the girl on the side of the road.
There are some things to question here. Would he really remember exactly what night, as in what date, he was at that bar? Who remembers dates like that? Also, considering he got out and looked all around the car and didn’t see anything, realistically hearing about this girl who was hit, he would still be somewhere in denial. He would think, “I couldn’t have hit her. I checked.” Instead, this guy rushes in to believing he is guilty. And another question comes later in the movie when he is speaking to his wife and instead of asking him if he hit the girl, she’s asking him if he had a drink that night. Maybe get to the big, more important question first.
What does work is the back and forth of wondering what this guy is going to do. He can’t just let an innocent man go to jail, right? But he are can’t turn himself in, because it will completely screw with his life, and among other things his wife is pregnant and expecting soon and he wants to be there for that. Another thing that works is the JK Simmons subplot of another jury member who is investigating the case, and how this problem is resolved. It’s a good movie, but there are definitely some plot holes along the way.