buchanan rides alone (budd boetticher, 1958)
music friday: 2004

geezer cinema: juror #2 (clint eastwood, 2024)

Clint Eastwood. It's like a brand name. You know what you are getting from a film he directed, even when he is 94 years old. Mick LaSalle encapsulated Eastwood's career: "Think about a legendary actor like John Wayne — enormous, iconic, indelible. Think of a director like John Ford — monumental, untouchable, profound. Now imagine if John Wayne and John Ford were the same guy."

Eastwood is/was an iconic actor, which isn't to say he was a great actor, although he certainly let his audience know the kind of character he was playing on a basic level. He was a popular movie star, although for me, the closest he came to a classic was in The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. He has a handful of Oscars, but none of them are for acting (in fairness, he has been nominated twice). Characters like Harry Callahan are easy to describe and easy to remember, and it's harder than it looks to portray the essence of such a shallow character. I'm not here to denigrate Eastwood's acting, nor am I denying his appeal to audiences. You know what you are getting: a minimalist approach that largely avoids overt emotionalism.

Eastwood as director is much like Eastwood the actor, and I fear at this point I'm just repeating myself, for I say this every time I see once of his pictures. He takes a minimalist approach, he stays within his budget, he trusts his actors, and from everything I know his movie sets are good to work on. But the closest he came to a classic was Mystic River, with maybe Letters from Iwo Jima second. He's made enough solid movies to convince a lot of people he is a great director ... and of course, two of his Oscars are for Best Director. But he also made weaker movies ... OK, if you make as many as he has, perhaps a little weakness is inevitable. People remember his work under Sergio Leone, and his Oscar for Unforgiven, and gradually we just assume everything he does is quality. But the Westerns he has directed include such non-classics as Pale Rider and The Outlaw Josey Wales, films with reputations that don't match what's on the screen. And what to make of stuff like Absolute Power and Space Cowboys? (It's worth noting that both of those movies had reasonably-sized budgets and made money worldwide. Clint Eastwood makes money for his studios.)

So what about Juror #2? It's one of Eastwood's better movies ... he lets his actors act, he lets the screenplay do its thing, and all of it is solid. There are hokey plot twists, but Eastwood gets about as much as you can out of a courtroom drama in 2024. He deserves the plaudits, even if he wasn't 94 years old. But is Juror #2 as good as Anora, or Furiosa, or The Wild Robot, or His Three Daughters? No. It's as good as The Beekeeper with Jason Statham, and that is not an insult ... The Beekeeper is a good movie. But it's not great, and neither is Juror #2.

Comments

Tomas

I love every single paragraph of this. Thanks for being you!!

Steven Rubio

I return those thanks a hundred fold! And I'm glad you like the paragraphs ... I've written some version of them pretty much every time I watch one of his movies :-).

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Your Information

(Name is required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)