Starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Rachel Weisz, Bruce Davison, Bruce McGill, Jeremy Piven, Luis Guzmán, Nick Searcy, Stanley Anderson, Cliff Curtis, Nestor Serrano, Leland Orser, Marguerite Moreau, Dylan McDermott
Written By:
Directed By: Gary Fleder
Studio: 20th Century Fox
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I was happy to receive this DVD in the mail for review because I really liked this movie. It has an awesome all-star cast, the story is interesting and it was shot really well. Plus John Cusack is in it!

The movie is about a very high profile court case against the gun companies and the state of gun control. I believe in the book, it was about the cigarette companies? Or was that the Insider? Anyway, one jury consultant named Rankin Fitch (Hackman) never loses a case and he’s hired for this one. He fixes jury selections, and most of the time, even the trial. This stuff actually happens in real life but to how extreme is anybody’s guess. A mysterious woman named “Marlee” (Weisz) calls up Fitch and Rohr (Hoffman) and says she’s going to fix the verdict and has someone on the jury to do that. She gets both sides of the trial in a frenzy and tries to blackmail them to pay her a large sum of money.

From seeing this movie a second time, I realized there is so many good actors in here. Though some are stuck in the dark like Luis Guzmán and other jury members, but Runaway Jury is still really entertaining if you like this type of movie. Two movies that come to mind when watching this are Enemy Of The State and 12 Angry Men. Both awesome flicks in my opinion. I like that the focus of the movie is outside of the courtroom. This is more behind the scenes type of stuff. It still would have been to nice to see them show more of Nicholas Easter and the other jury members though. I also heard that Rankin Fitch is a lot more of a bastard in the book, but Gene Hackman still brought that asshole-ness to the movie. I still can’t believe Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman never worked together before, and they are good friends. They were roommates in the late 60s in New York as struggling actors. This movie doesn’t have one stand out actor or actresses because they all performed equally well. I have very little problems with this movie and I could watch this one over & over and not get sick of it.

There’s actually a lot of extras on here. Some short, some not. There’s 2 scenes where Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman talk about that scene while that scene is happening. There’s full length audio commentary with the director, Gary Fleder that I have not listen to yet. Like I’ve said in other reviews before, I won’t listen to the commentary unless I’ve seen the movie a bunch of times or there is a boring part in the movie. There’s 2 deleted scenes that weren’t special at all. One is Nic Easter calling Marlee from the hotel room, and there is another one involving Luiz Guzman and John Cusack talking about someone on the take. Yeah big whoop! There’s a featurette called Exploring the Scene and it’s with Hackman and Hoffman. It’s the scene where Rohr and Fitch meet in the bathroom and argue about things. There’s interviews with the actors together, and the featurette also shows them messing up their lines a bunch of times. Both actors have a different approach to acting and you can tell by watching this extra. Then there’s another featurette featuring the two talking about how they met, and about the past. That was funny to watch, and to hear their stories. Other extras include a Making Of, Cinematography, Editing and Production Design. They all add up to be about an hour or so.

If you like movies like Enemy of the State, 12 Angry Men, and Jury Duty…Ok well not the last one but if you like courtroom thrillers than definitely buy Runaway Jury. This one’s a keeper for John Cusack fans!

Features:
– Fulln-length audio commentary by director Gary Fleder
– Scenen-specific commentary by Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman
– Deleted Scenes With Commentary
– 5 additional featurettes (Acting, Making-Of, Cinematography, Production Design, Editing)

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC
SPANISH: Dolby Digital Surround
FRENCH: Dolby Digital Surround

Video:
Widescreen 2.35:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes:
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 0 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: