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THE
JURY
REVIEWED
BY CHARITY BISHOP
Our
rating: 3 out of 5 Because
of: violence, language, nudity, thematic elements
Rated:
Anyone
who has ever been summoned to sit for a jury knows
what it's like. Endless hours of waiting, the hope
that you won't be chosen, wondering what's going on at
home, and if you'll take a pay cut while serving your
civic duty. But what if you wanted to get on
the jury? What if the case was of supreme interest to
you? What it was so controversial that the entire
world was waiting on the edge of their seats to find
out what you, as a juror, would decide? It might be
something like the plight of The Jury, one of
the most fascinating trail films I've ever seen. The
case is controversial. The evidence is insufficient.
The public want answers. An
official envelope arrives in the mailbox of twelve
people. Each
of them has a different history, a different story to
tell. There is the single mom struggling to work
through family problems. The embittered Jew
bulldozed by his prejudiced father-in-law. The
recovering alcoholic just out of rehab. The unhappy
housewife felt imprisoned by her overly possessive
husband. The Catholic seminary student not quite sure
he wants to be a priest. They are brought together to
determine the fate of an unhappy defendant. When
an English schoolboy is found murdered on the local
heath, the victim of a violent attack with an Islamic
jihad sword, authorities arrest the nearest and most
likely suspect, sixteen year old
Duvinder Singh (Sonnell Dadral), who was seen with the sword prior to the
crime, and whose behavior was suspicious after the
event occurred. There
are no actual witnesses to the assault, but the
general public are convinced that Singh
is responsible
for the slaying of the white boy, who was known to
bully and torment him at their elite prep school,
where Singh was a straight-A student. The
Prosecution (George Cording)
has built up a solid case against him. The missing
knapsack with his clothes in it has not been found,
presumably covered in blood. He had the means, motive,
and opportunity. His behavior that morning is highly
suspect. There may even be a witness who saw him
fleeing down the street with blood staining his
shirt... or was it his red scholastic tie, flapping in
the wind? The wounds were delivered by an apt hand.
Singh has just such a hand... but could he have done
such damage with an arm formerly pulled out of its
socket? Back and forth the argument goes, first the
Prosecution, and then the Defense (Derek Jacobi, in a
compelling role), leaving the audience and the jurors
reeling. Did he do it? Did he not do it? What about
the other violent man on the heath that morning? What
about Singh's history of irrational and sporadic
behavior? Soon all the jurors (Gerard Butler, Darren
Boyd, Isabel Brooke, Stuart Bunce, Richard Buss,
Matthew Thomas Davies) are forced to make a
controversial, and even dangerous decision. Sub-plots
involve a handful of these character's personal
problems. One of them is a former businessman who
invested everything in a get-rich-quick scheme and had
the rug torn out from under him. Seeing his former
"business partner" in the court, he
tentatively thinks about another scheme. There's the
black woman whom racists target, attempting to coerce
her into voting guilty toward the boy that murdered
their friend. And there's the former alcoholic
unknowingly pursuing a married woman, nearly at the
cost of his life. What makes this movie good is that
the audience is put in the position of the jury. We
don't know for sure if Singh did it or not. Both sides
of the case are presented, two different scenarios. He
could be innocent, he could be guilty. We will never
know for certain. It's the equivalent of being in a
high-profile murder case, complete with heckling,
threats, and racism to the extreme. Some viewers have
remarked on how one-sided this film is: the Arabs are
sympathetic, the white men are racist. This is not
entirely true. All of the characters are equally
flawed and while racism is brought up by the Defendant
as part of his argument, I never felt the film was
striving to be politically correct. There
are a number of factors that simply don't add up.
Maybe the British trial system is different than the
United States, but in a case of such controversy, the
jury would be sequestered, both to avoid outside
influence and prevent them from being harmed. There's
no possible way they would let them return home. After
the trial, the jurors would also be under surveillance
for awhile, for their own protection. Instead, after
rendering a sentence, they're left to go out into the
raging streets alone. Also, in our trial system, one
heckle from the gallery would get you banned, whereas
the white boys can scream insults repetitively and are
unquestioningly allowed back in the following day.
It's simply not plausible, nor does it always cast the
judicial system in a good light. A guard at the prison
is paid off to punch Singh in the stomach, "for
the family of the murdered boy." There's also
some questionable moral ethics and issues of faith.
One character is a would-be-priest who attempts to
find his former girlfriend because he's not sure if
he's called to the church. A older priest reminds him
that very few people are truly called; they make a
choice to serve God. A
woman trapped in a mentally abusive relationship
switches her wedding ring to the other hand and
entertains the attentions of a fellow juror. They
never go beyond a kiss, but her new boyfriend tells
his mentor that he wants to sleep with her. His mentor
reminds him that alcoholics are prohibited from having
sex for a year after leaving rehab. There's some
related sexual innuendo and jokes. Pointless backside
nudity is shown of a man showering. There are some
brutal flashbacks to the murder; a boy being hacked
with a sword, his body covered in blood, gruesome
autopsy pictures, a woman being beaten almost to death
with a stick, and a man taking after a juror with a
baseball bat. Windows are smashed and dead ferrets
sent through the mail, along with threatening
messages. There are Arab racist slurs, and a shocking
amount of profanity. Jesus' name is abused a half
dozen times, and the f-word is used twice. I
would have liked less traversing into the personal
lives of the jurors, instead just focusing on the
courtroom drama. I found Derek Jacobi's defense much
more interesting than get-rich-quick schemes. The two
best storylines are the trial itself, and the Jew
whose priorities change and allow him to look
objectively at the case. The language was also
unforgivable, but for those searching for an intense,
thought-provoking glimpse into the trial system, The
Jury is a good place to start.
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