Juror #2: Clint Eastwood Rests His Case
Our modern system of law and order prides itself on labels of ‘innocent’, ‘guilty’, ‘truth’ and ’justice’ as symbols of perfect morality as reflected in society’s will for utilitarian order and decency. These symbols have since become universal in meaning, understood by all to the point that they have eroded into hollow shells that echo personal agendas as lawful ideals, winning verdicts as winning lotteries and justice only serving power.
Many of us wouldn’t bat an eye to this, as still having the base notion of guilt and innocence being as black and white as they come is rather comforting, even as these notions are twisted into caricatures by some people until they lose their very meaning.
But in what may very well be Clint Eastwood’s directorial swansong, Juror #2 strips down the established civilian systems that govern what is right and wrong and asks us to wrestle with our own ideas of what it means to be guilty or innocent. Should the innocent really deserve freedom? Should the guilty truly deserve justice?
Putting us in the shoes of a soon-to-be young father Justin Kemp who finds himself as a juror on a murder trial, we the audience are forced to dig into our own conscience just as Kemp does when he realises that it was he himself that committed the hit-and-run crime by accident that is now being tried in the very same trial. Kemp must now decide the fate of a defendant who has been found guilty of that crime.
Eastwood’s sharp storytelling gravitas, refined over decades of cinematic work onscreen and off it, brings to fore the pertinent themes that the iconic star himself has tried to interpret in many ways over all these years: Can your ideals and morals hold up when you face your worst enemy, yourself?
Should the innocent really deserve freedom? Should the guilty truly deserve justice?
Kemp’s a decent human that is guilty by accident, while the man in Kemp’s trial is a cruel person that is innocent by nature.
Can the truth really be justice at the cost of something or someone good? The answer may be simple or complex to you, but if it has left you being more aware of the selfishness that may sometimes cloud your own “perfect” moral compass, then Eastwood rests his case.
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