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The Movie:
Jury duty is neither a comedy a la "Liar, Liar" or Pauly Shore nor a thriller, like "The Juror". Although this isn't exactly an accurate portrayal of the experience, I appreciate what Hollywood has been able to make out of the act of sitting in a room listening to tons and tons of information for days at a time.
For "The Juror" though, this isn't even an entertaining entry into the "jury genre". The novel was widely regarded as a suspenseful tale; although I haven't read it, all of that doesn't make an appearance here. The film stars two major actors who, at this point, began to find their careers starting to slide downhill. Demi Moore stars as Annie Laird, a single mother and artist who decides that taking part on a jury in a major trial would add some excitement into her life. Although I can certainly agree that jury duty is something that people should do, the idea of doing it for excitement will sound fairly loony to anyone who has ever served.
Unfortunately, the film is about as thrilling as jury duty itself. Soon enough, Annie is being followed by members of the mafia group whose leader is on trial. Headed by a man calling himself "The Teacher"(Alec Baldwin), the group eventually works its way into Annie's life to convince her to vote "not guilty" in the trial. At first he seems like an ordinary art collector, but when he reveals himself, the teacher makes the rules clear - vote not guilty or he'll make Annie's life a lot worse.
This is the perfect "Alec Baldwin" role; a smart, slick and menacing character, the actor delivers enough subtle touches to make the character convincingly evil; sort of a bad-guy version of his "Shadow" role. Moore is well, nothing spectacular, but she does what she can with a limited role.
The biggest problem of the film is that it's not only predictable, but incredibly dull. Director Brian Gibson doesn't move the film along nearly fast enough, and it drags often. This is partly because of the fact that Moore doesn't give the audience really a reason to care about her character and because scenes are literally too long; the film is way too lengthy at 120 minutes and could have easily been a sharper film at 20 minutes less. It still wouldn't have been perfect, but it certainly would have been more entertaining.
The DVD
VIDEO: "The Juror" is not a very appealing looking film, with a dark, dull color scheme. The transfer is not outstanding, but does provide an attractive presentation for the film. Sharpness is passable, but not perfect; scenes seem to lightly fall into looking soft at times. This is not a major complaint, but simply something I noticed on occasion throughout the film. The film is certainly a dark-looking one, and Tristar's presentation is accurately dark, but never looking too dark.
There are no instances of pixelation or shimmering, and the only complaint really remains that the picture occasionally looks a little soft. The print used remains clear and clean, free or all but a couple of tiny speckles. Overall, the DVD provides a presentation that's a few steps above average for a movie that's visually pretty blah. The disc provides both the widescreen 2.35:1 transfer, and on the flip side there's a pan&scan version.
Again, colors are dull and dark for the most part here, trying to keep in "tone" with the film's bleakness. Colors are accurate though, and never suffer from any problems.
SOUND: The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack doesn't have any problems, but isn't too involving. Surround use is minor, and only slightly effective; there are some instances where they are used for the score or for light ambient sounds, but they could have been used more often and somewhat more agressively. The score by James Newton Howard is pleasing - it gets the tone the film itself was trying for right, and ends up being effective and sometimes haunting.
The meeting in chapter 9 is an example of decent although not intense sound; the audio convincingly puts the audience in the middle of the rain shower as Moore and Baldwin's characters are talking. The outdoor scenes in general vary, but at their best, they provide a nice, open sense of space, with nice although minor details of the environment.
As for the general quality of the audio though, it's very good. The audio has a very warm, natural feel to it, and the score especially sounds crisp and rich. Dialogue is clear and natural - that's what the film really focuses on. Although "The Juror" seemed to be marketed as an action picture, it's more of a dialogue-driven drama. The general quality of the audio is pleasing, but don't expect a whole lot of action to it.
MENUS:: Fairly uninteresting main menus, just recycling the cover art for the main menu and some minor film-themed images are used to make up the sub-menus.
EXTRAS: Trailers for "The Juror", "A Few Good Men" and "Mortal Thoughts".
Final Thoughts: Pretty slow for a "thriller". Tristar's DVD presents fine audio/video quality, but nothing much else. The movie though, is the main reason I'd recommend skipping this one.
Film Grade
The Film D
DVD Grades
Video 88/B = (352/400 possible points)
Audio: 87/B = (348/400 possible points)
Extras: 70/C- = (210/300 possible points)
Menus: 70/C- = (140/200 possible points)
Value: 80/B- = (240/300 possible points)
TOTAL POINTS:1290/1600
DVD GRADE:B-/80%
FILM GRADE: D
DVD GRADE: B-
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