Trial by Jury

This improbable thriller about a woman juror (Whaley) who is kidnapped (and worse) in order to coerce her into voting to acquit a mob boss (Assante) who is on trial for murder, was better than I expected it to be. The plot is preposterous but the performances are excellent, particularly Hurt's as an alcoholic ex-cop who does part time work for the mobster. The appropriate time to watch this movie would be Saturday morning. Nevertheless, it is all right. I gave it a "6."

More often that not, I'll call a movie overrated, but this one, I think, is underrated. It features solid acting and a very involving story.

There isn't as much violence as most modern-day crime movies and that's fine because this story doesn't need it. The profanity is also lower-than-normal. All that's missing is better cinematography.

Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Armand Assante, Gabirel Byrne and William Hurt all make this interesting and provide good performances. This is a good attention-diverting movie that is a good "date movie," too. It's tense without a ton of the usual overdone violence and profanity.

In New York, Valerie Alston (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) is a single woman, who has a small son and is the owner of a store of clothes. She is convoked to participate of the jury of the trial of the mobster Rusty Pirone (Armand Assante), who will be judged for several murders. In the eve, the key witness of the prosecutor Daniel Graham (Gabriel Byrne) was executed with the four police officers that were protecting him by Pirone's men. Meanwhile, the ex-cop Tommy Vesey (William Hurt), who also works for Pirone, threatens Valerie, menacing to kill her son if she does not claim that Pirone is not guilty. "Trial by Jury" is not a bad movie, but it could have been a great film-noir. The first three-quarters of the story are indeed excellent. But there are two weaknesses in this film: the first one is the performance of Joanne Whalley-Kilmer. The character of Valerie lives a terrible dramatic dilemma and a very conflictive situation between her consciousness and the request of the mobster, and demanded a more expressive actress. Unfortunately, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer keeps the same expression in the most different situations along the story. The second weak point is the conclusion of the story, which is too much "Hollywoodian" to be credible. Anyway, this film is a good entertainment. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Tribunal Sob Suspeita" ("Tribunal Under Suspicion")

TRIAL BY JURY has quite a bad reputation. It has a score of 5,3 and only 20 reviews to date, all this would lead to a terrible movie. As for me, I decided to watch it the day it was announced that William Hurt died and I had to celebrate his career somehow.

Valerie Alston (Joanne Whalley) is a juror on jury duty in a trial where Daniel Graham (Gabriel Byrne) is determined to put crime boss Rusty Pirone (Armand Assante) behind bars. After a failed trial Pirone sends an henchman, former cop Tommy Vesey (Hurt) for trying to get off his charges, and Vesey will warn Valerie that unless she cooperates the Pirone family will murder her son. So she hasn't any other choice than take her kid to grandpa (Stuart Whitman in one of his last movies) and hope that the jury votes her way while Vesey will have a change of heart and tries to protect Valerie.

With such an excellent cast full of well known names and that premise it could have been a good movie, right? Well, you are wrong. The plot was confusing most of the time and I thought they must have heavily edited it before the release, while the acting was probably the only good thing about this movie especially by Whalley and Hurt. The script too looked like it had lots of re-writes and at times the pacing was dull.

Overall, not that terrible but a misfire for the reasons mentioned above. There have been lots of great courtroom dramas and two years later they made a movie pretty much identical to this one but better: THE JUROR with Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin. This instead is only of interest if you are a fan of some members of the cast.

I discovered this film while searching for laserdiscs. It's a good way to find forgotten gems. TBJ is a crime film that never becomes tiresome mostly due to the fantastic emotionally alluring portrayal of a single mom by Joanne Whalley. She's your average girl stuck in a mess with a megalomaniac king pin. Fortunately for the viewer her body is not average, giving her character that added, "I don't know I'm sexy" vibe. Armand Assante turns in a great performance as he easily puts out charm and terror with a simple stoic glance. The root of the film which is the two worlds colliding, gets delivered with believability.

The real gritty hoots of the film are William Hurt playing a twisted x cop that still has remnants of good in him and the ever delectable Kathleen Quinlan as a quirky sot. I really liked the script. The seedy undercurrent feel that the film has is captured with words that give an inner chuckle and a solid outer grimace. Some courtroom antics are quite stagey but those scenes can be muscled through if you like the genre. TBJ is not a routine crime thriller and throws some very interesting entertainment punches.