A Jurada

Annie Laird (Demi Moore) is a sculptress and single mother to Oliver (Gordon-Levitt) who essentially talks her way onto the jury of a major Mafia trial. That leads to her being targeted and manipulated by a hit-man(Baldwin) who demands that Annie produce a not guilty verdict……

Baldwin and Moore trying their best, and are compelling to a point, it all eventually unravels due to over-length and implausibility of the characters, whose actions over the course of the film are increasingly unlikely.

This film is a great demonstration of Demi Moore's lacking of facial expression. She's a capable performer, but she lacks the ability to project either vulnerability or likability. Moore fails at playing the victim.

Moore is played away by Heche (one with great facial expressions). Heche in the leading role And Moore in the role of best friend, could have raised this movie up from being slightly better than average into an exciting thriller.

This is a pretty good movie up until the ending, that goes way over-the-top.

A movie with this much pedigree should have been better. Solid acting all around, competent direction, a better than average script from Ted Tally, somewhat fresh off his Oscar win for Silence of the Lambs.

It's just that nothing really happens. Or not much, at least. The beginning is taut and engaging. But then it plods through until the extremely predictable ending. And how they missed the opportunity not to hang the bad guy at the end, given the San Simon reference earlier, I don't know. I guess they wanted one less than obvious thing in there. Pacing is the biggest problem here, along with the lack of action. 20 minutes should have been hacked off the final product and this could have been quite a bit better.

This is an A list cast with matching performances. The story is run of the mill but it works. The right level of nastiness, tears, agony, despair and surprise. This is Baldwin in his prime.

I've just watched this again and know for definite that it sits around a rating of 7 without doubt. I can only assume the lack of shootouts and explosions has meant it gets a lower score. But this is a solid 7 and I do recommend it.

This movie is enough to recommend on the strength of the acting from Moore, Gandolfini, and especially Alec Baldwin but it is a shame that some of the excesses and superfluousness (especially the unsatisfying escapade in Guatemala) could not have been cut out. Instead of more action it would have been interesting if the ethical aspect of a compromised juror (albeit unwillingly) could have been explored in the spirit of 12 Angry Men. Anyway, this movie still rates a 7/10 on the strength of some undeniable suspense and very strong acting especially from Baldwin.

Excellent: Demi Moore, cinematography. The suspense-parts are generally well done, for example where it is not clear whether the boy on the bicycle will be killed or not.

General plot: Unfortunately the genre where the good person does nothing right and the bad person does nothing wrong. And innocent friends also get killed in the process. Then suddenly in the last 5 minutes the good person amasses incredible logistics and action, and the bad guy dies. Better would have been some more intellectual input throughout the film from the heroin, such as that she gradually finds out where he hid microphones, and realises that he has her address list, and so warns her friends what is going on.