David Traversa Reading most of the previous reviews made me wonder... This movie is a thriller from the word go and total escapism, yet, many reviewers pretend a perfect script, a flawless sequence of events --life like-- without realizing that this is not a documentary, with dates, statistics and absolutely realistic situations.IT'S JUST A MOVIE!!Seat back and enjoy it!! there isn't more than that!!We are not watching an Ingmar Bergman or Antonioni film here. It's just a thriller, and as such, an EXCELLENT ONE!!I followed it in total concentration, being captivated by such superb actors and director and finding all scenes and sequences amazingly perfect.There is not a single word spoken unnecessarily and every one is always in character, plus a great photography and as eye candy Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin, two superb actors on top of being gorgeous.I found this movie above average for a thriller, surprisingly above average!!

MBunge This film is a great demonstration of why Demi Moore didn't have a more successful career as a top-level actress, though whether it was the fault of Moore or society is open for debate. She's a capable enough performer, but she lacks the ability to project either vulnerability or likability. With the former, you can trade on an audience's sympathy. With the latter, you can paper over the problems in a script or a production with your own charm. Moore's weaknesses are so clear in The Juror because she fails first at playing the victim and then can't entice the viewer to overlook the obvious melodramatics of the film's conclusion. She also stands exposed when compared to her co-star Alec Baldwin. He himself has always suffered from a lack of likability, especially in his dramatic roles, but Baldwin can manage a bit of vulnerability. His cold-blooded, criminal mastermind here is far more open and inviting than Moore's ordinary woman and mother.It's especially a shame because a different actress, one without Moore's emotional blind spots, could have raised this movie up from being slightly better than average and made it a truly thrilling thriller. Anne Heche is a perfect example, playing as she does a supporting role to Moore's lead. There's an unguarded energy to her acting that makes her characters so much more appealing than Moore's, who cannot radiate the same kind of joy and ease as an essential contrast to the more sullen and terrifying moments in the story. I'll confess to being more a fan of Heche than Moore, but I think my argument is supported by examining the roles and quality of work done by each woman in the years after The Juror.Annie Laird (Demi Moore) is a sculptress and single mother to Oliver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who essentially talks her way onto the jury of a major Mafia trial. That leads to her being targeted and manipulated by the brilliantly evil "Teacher" (Alec Baldwin), a Mafia associate who demands that Annie produce a not guilty verdict. She succeeds, only to find that the twisted romantic obsession of "Teacher" is far more dangerous than any aspect of organized crime.Putting aside Moore's deficiencies as the star of the show, this is a pretty good flick up until and ending that goes over-the-top and all the way to Guatemala. With James Gandolfini as a gangster that serves as sort of a midpoint between Annie's normality and the psychopathic nature of "Teacher", Ted Tally's screenplay put a lot of mostly effective effort into building an interesting dynamic between his two leads. And in the relationships between "Teacher" and other mobsters, Tally defuses the super-villain aura around his bad guy and makes him both more believable and more frightening because of that.And when Moore is able to play Annie as a strong and defiant person, her strengths as an actress shine through. Which brings up the point of why a woman can't build a career on playing strong, aggressive characters on screen? There's a legion of men in Hollywood history who duplicated Moore's lack of accessibility or possessed even worse flaws in their craft, yet were able to prosper in roles that didn't require or disguised their faults. But at least in American cinema, female roles are defined almost entirely by vulnerability, likability or f**kability. Moore has the last in spades but admirable avoided that career path. Maybe the problem isn't in Moore, dear friends, but in ourselves.All in all, I like The Juror enough to give it a mild recommendation. Heche does get naked in it and that's more than enough to tip the scales to the good for me.

imkerho Excellent: Demi Moore, cinematography. The suspense-parts are generally well done, for example where it is not clear whether the boy on the bicycle will be killed or not. General plot: Unfortunately the genre where the good person does nothing right and the bad person does nothing wrong. And innocent friends also get killed in the process. Then suddenly in the last 5 minutes the good person amasses incredible logistics and action, and the bad guy dies. Better would have been some more intellectual input throughout the film from the heroin, such as that she gradually finds out where he hid microphones, and realises that he has her address list, and so warns her friends what is going on.

sddavis63 There's a rule in public speaking that goes something like this: always know your landing strip before you start. In other words, rather than circling and circling and circling, you have to know how to bring something to an end. Among others, Martin Luther King, Jr. lived by that principle in his preaching and speaking. "The Juror" could have learned that lesson, and it would have made for a far more satisfying movie.Basically the cast was all right. In fact, Alec Baldwin was quite good as the rather charming psychotic known as the "Teacher." He had an air of both friendliness and ominousness to him. It's not easy to bring both of those qualities to a character, and he did it well. Demi Moore (who isn't my favourite actress) was fine as sculptor Annie Laird, and James Gandolfini carried his weight as Eddie, a sympathetic member of a local mob family. Ann Heche was superfluous as Annie's friend Juliet.The story revolves around Annie being selected for jury duty in a murder trial involving the head of the mob family, Louis Boffano (Tony Lo Bianco.) Desperate to get Boffano acquitted, Eddie and the Teacher are sent to threaten Annie, telling her that unless she successfully argues for an acquittal in the case, her son Oliver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) will be killed. Given the nature of the story, I was expecting more jury room intrigue, as Annie desperately tried to get Boffano off to save her son. Instead, as far as I was concerned, the movie got way off track and ended up adding way too much to the story. The trial ends just a little over halfway through, and the last 45 minutes or so was much too much, and began to approach the level of being just plain silly. The mobsters turn on each other, the DA turns on Annie and then offers to protect her, and Annie becomes a gun-toting heroine in Guatemala of all places! Had the movie stuck more closely to the courtroom drama, and Annie's personal dilemma as she desperately tried to get Boffano acquitted even while knowing that he's guilty, this probably would have been both tighter and shorter, as well as better focused. As it was, seemed to me to be a bit of a jumble that tried too hard. (3/10)