Runaway Jury

This article is about the film. For the novel, see The Runaway Jury.

Runaway Jury
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Gary Fleder
Written by	Novel: John Grisham Screenplay: Brian Koppelman David Levien Rick Cleveland Matthew Chapman
Produced by	Gary Fleder Christopher Mankiewicz Arnon Milchan
Starring	John Cusack Gene Hackman Dustin Hoffman Rachel Weisz Bruce Davison Bruce McGill Jeremy Piven Nick Searcy
Cinematography	Robert Elswit
Edited by	William Steinkamp Jeff Williams
Music by	Christopher Young
Production company	Regency Enterprises
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	October 17, 2003
Running time	127 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60 million
Box office	$80,154,140

Runaway Jury is a 2003 American drama/thriller film directed by Gary Fleder and starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Rachel Weisz. It is an adaptation of John Grisham's The Runaway Jury.

Plot

In New Orleans, Louisiana, a failed day trader at a stock brokerage firm shows up at his former workplace with a semiautomatic handgun and opens fire on his former colleagues, killing himself soon after. Among the dead are Celeste Wood's husband Jacob (Dylan McDermott in a brief uncredited role); two years later, and armed with pro bono attorney Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), Celeste decides to take the weapon's manufacturer to court, on the grounds that the company's gross negligence led to her husband's death.

File:Rankin Fitch from Runaway Jury.jpg

Jury consultant Rankin Fitch and his team at work.

As the trial date draws near, jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman) arrives in town. He has an incredible talent for reading people. Fitch and his team are armed with personal computers and backgrounds on each of the jurors in the jury pool. Using this technology, they communicate with lead defense attorney Durwood Cable (Bruce Davison) in the courtroom through electronic surveillance (a highly illegal practice) when they view the jurors and hear the answers to the questions put forth to them. This technology serves to create a "nightmare of corporate arm-twisting."

In the jury pool is Nicholas Easter (John Cusack), a happy-go-lucky electronic store clerk who tries to get himself excused from jury duty. The judge decides to give Easter a lesson in civic duty and Fitch, despite having originally eliminated Easter from the list of potential jurors, tells Durwood that the judge has sandbagged them and he must select Easter as a juror.

Easter's congenial manner wins him acceptance from his fellow jurors, except Frank Hererra, a hardened former Marine of Cuban descent, who knows that there is a great deal of money at stake. Hererra takes an instant disliking to Easter, which is not alleviated when Easter proposes Herman Grimes — a blind man who displayed the most knowledge of law out of all of them when being selected — as jury foreman instead of Hererra.

However, there is something to Hererra's suspicion that Easter has a hidden agenda. It is soon clear that Easter does have an ulterior motive, which somehow involves his girlfriend Marlee (Rachel Weisz). The two seem to be grifters and try to offer Fitch the verdict he wants — for a steep price. Fitch asks for proof that they can do what they say they can do. This they try to give him in a number of different ways; for example, Marlee asks Fitch "feeling patriotic?" and the next day, as an indirect result of a suggestion of Easter's, the jury stands up and leads the entire courtroom in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Angered that an "amateur" may be even better at manipulating the jury than he is, Fitch orders Easter's apartment raided. Marlee counteracts by getting one of Fitch's jurors bounced. The cat and mouse game continues when a hit man tries to kill Marlee in her apartment. She manages to injure the intruder and escape. She raises her price from $10 to $15 million.

Meanwhile, Marlee is also working on Rohr, also promising to deliver him the same verdict for the same price. Though Rohr knows his case stands little chance against the well-funded defense he refuses to pay, going with his conscience.

Fitch finally agrees to pay Marlee the ransom as one of his witnesses blows up on the stand, crippling, but not entirely losing the case. After Easter receives confirmation that Fitch has wired the money to a Cayman Islands bank, he asks jurors to review the facts of the case (trying to deliver a verdict for Celeste), much to the displeasure of his fellow juror Frank. In the meantime, Fitch's henchman, tracking Easter's path to Indiana, calls him frantically, telling him to not wire Easter the money, but it is too late. The henchman also learns that Easter's real name is Jeffrey Kerr, and that he has been tailing gun cases for some time. We also learn that Marlee's real name is Gabrielle Brant, and that she and her sister were former high school classmates of Easter's in the fictional rural town of Gardner, Indiana.

As the film progresses, the audience learns that Marlee's sister died in a school shooting, and of Easter's unsuccessful attempts to protect her. The town of Gardner took the gun manufacturer to court, and the company used Fitch as a consultant. When Fitch helped to win the case for the defense, the town of Gardner bankrupted its treasury.

Back in the jury room, Frank calls the lawsuit frivolous, stating that despite the hardship in his own life, he has never asked anyone for a handout. Frank also reveals in a rant that regardless of the case facts, he does not want to deliver a verdict that will make a white upper-middle class woman even richer.

Shocked at Frank's outburst, the jurors agree to review testimony once more. The gun manufacturer is found liable, with the jury awarding $110 million to Celeste Wood. Fitch, defeated, leaves the courthouse for a nearby bar. There, he is confronted by Easter and Marlee, who show him a copy of the wire transfer of $15 million. They tell him that he is to retire immediately... or they will fax the transfer document to the IRS, who will be likely concerned over such a large amount of money. Fitch asks what they intend to do with the money, and gets the answer that the $15 million will be given to the town of Gardner, Indiana since they went bankrupt after losing their case.

Outside the bar, they see Wendell Rohr. Rohr recognizes Marlee and Nick, and they smile at one another without saying a word. The movie ends with Marlee telling Nick she wants to go home. Nick agrees.

Cast

• John Cusack as Nicholas Easter a.k.a. Jeffrey Kerr. Easter has a resentment towards the gun industry as a result of a past tragedy.
• Rachel Weisz as Gabrielle 'Marlee' Brandt. Accomplice to Nicholas Easter who shares the same hatred toward the gun industry. Brandt is responsible for contacting both Wendall Rohr and Rankin Fitch during the trial.
• Dustin Hoffman as Wendall Rohr: lawyer representing Celeste Wood. Rohr is a lawyer whose passion for winning is only exceeded by his morality. Even though he seems discouraged at multiple times throughout the trial, he never succumbs to breaking the law just to win.
• Gene Hackman as Rankin Fitch: jury consultant for Cable. Portrayed as a powerhouse who will do anything to win. He shows no regard to moral guidelines and believes that any case can be bought.
• Jeremy Piven as Lawrence Green: jury consultant for Rohr. The decisions Green makes over the course of the trial shows his inexperience and how naive he is. His morals are not as strong as Rohrs. However, he never stoops to the level of Fitch.
• Bruce Davison as Durwood Cable: lawyer representing the firearms manufacturer
• Bruce McGill as Judge Harkin: judge
• Marguerite Moreau as Amanda Monroe: Fitch's assistant, and appears to be his protege.
• Nick Searcy as Doyle: Fitch's assistant, used as a spy to get information and material.
• Leland Orser as Lamb: Fitch's assistant, an expert at computers and technology.
• Lori Heuring as Maxine: Fitch's assistant, a master seductress.
• Nestor Serrano as Janovich: Fitch's assistant, a violent man who can 'find anything,' and likes to tear up houses.
• Joanna Going as Celeste Wood: widow and plaintiff
• Dylan McDermott as Jacob Wood: Celeste's deceased husband whose death kickstarts the whole lawsuit.
• Andrea Powell as Deborah: Jacob's secretary
• Carol Sutton as Lou Dell: bailiff
• Stanley Anderson as Garland Jankle: CEO of the firearms manufacturer
• Celia Weston as Mrs. Brandt

The jury

• Gerry Bamman as Herman Grimes. Grimes is a blind man who is appointed as the jury foreman, because he seems to have some measure of legal knowledge.
• Bill Nunn as Lonnie Shaver, a grocery store employee who is given a considerably lucrative offer for management and promotion, though obviously only if he votes in favor of the gun company.
• Cliff Curtis as Frank Herrera. Herrera does not trust Easter from the very beginning and feels that Easter is trying to throw the trial one way or the other. He is the eventual cause of the jury's decision.
• Juanita Jennings as Loreen Duke
• Nora Dunn as Stella Hulic, a secret drinker who is sympathetic to the gun company. She is kicked out of the jury in a counterplot by Marlee and Easter to prove their power to Fitch.
• Rusty Schwimmer as Millie Dupree. She's an artist, whose husband is entrapped and blackmailed, forcing her to vote for the gun company until she confesses to Nick.
• Jennifer Beals as Vanessa Lembeck, a woman who is strongly outspoken against the gun company.
• Guy Torry as Eddie Weese, a young man who is keeping a deep secret. He's taking what, at the time, was an experimental new H. I. V. treatment.
• Rhoda Griffis as Rikki Coleman, she's had an affair, and an abortion, without telling her minister husband. This makes her vulnerable to blackmail.
• Luis Guzmán as Jerry Hernandez,
• Fahnlohnee R. Harris as Sylvia DeShazo
• Corri English as Lydia Deets, a replacement jurist who is brought in to replace Stella Hulic.

Difference from novel

• The novel centered around a lawsuit filed by Celeste Wood against Pynex, a conglomerate company which is one of the "Big Four". (The "Big Four" were each diversified corporations with major roots and continuing economic roles as tobacco marketers). On the other hand, the film centered around a lawsuit filed by the plaintiff against a large scale retailer of small arms. In the novel Wood was a boatmaker while in the film he is shown as a stockbroker.

• In the novel, Wendall Rohr, the plaintiff lawyer, is shown to be as greedy and moneyminded as Fitch - he offers Angel Weese's boyfriend Derek money to convince him to vote for the plaintiff; however in the film, Rohr (Hoffman) is shown to be much more considerate and much more ethical than in the novel (declining to pay $10 million to Marlee to manipulate a jury).

• In the novel there is no ostensible contact between Fitch and Rohr. In fact it appears as though Rohr and Fitch never meet and yet in the film a major clash occurs between Rohr and Fitch in the bathroom.

• In the novel- Frank Herrera is a Colonel while in the movie he is a Master Sergeant.

• The novel is set in Biloxi, MS while the movie is set (and filmed) in New Orleans, LA.

• In the novel, Frank Herrera was bumped out by Nicholas Easter before the jury deliberations. No such thing happened in the movie.

• In the novel there was no direct contact between Easter and Fitch. In the movie, they met and talked about the jury votes.

• In the novel, Marlee used the money from Fitch to short sell shares of Pynex and other tobacco companies to make money when the verdict caused stock prices to fall. No such thing in the movie.

Production

Runaway Jury had been in production since 1997. Directors slated to helm the picture included Joel Schumacher and Mike Newell, with the lead being offered to Edward Norton and Will Smith. The novel's focus on tobacco companies was the kept until the 1999 film The Insider was released, causing the plot to instead deal with gun companies.

Revenue

The film grossed $49,440,996 in the United States and $80,154,140 worldwide.

Reception

Runaway Jury received generally positive reviews from critics, garnering a 73% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the site calling the film "An implausible but entertaining legal thriller." Roger Ebert's critique of this film stated that the plot to sell the jury to the highest-bidding party was the most ingenious device in the story because it avoided pitting the "evil" and the "good" protagonists directly against each other in a stereotypical manner, but it plunged both of them into a moral abyss. Grisham himself said it was a "smart, suspenseful" movie and was disappointed it made so little money.

External links

• Runaway Jury at IMDb
• Runaway Jury at AllMovie
• Review by Roger Ebert
• Runaway Jury at Box Office Mojo
• Runaway Jury at New York Times