Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-OCT-2003
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11988 in DVD
• Brand: MOORE,DEMI
• Released on: 1998-07-29
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 118 minutes

Customer Reviews

Suspenseful but ordinary
Without Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin, this script never would have made it to film. It is a run-of-the-mill story about a single mother (Demi Moore) who is being pressured by an organized crime figure (Alec Baldwin) to vote "not guilty" on a high profile trial. The mob's leverage is her love for her son. Yawn. But Moore and Baldwin turn in fine performances: Moore as the defiant, intelligent, and terrified Annie, and Baldwin as her sociopath handler. Baldwin is so convincingly creepy and so demented in his take on everything that the audience fears intensely for Annie's survival.

This film contains some honestly terrifying sequences. Unfortunately, the ending is weak, and you're left with few memorable scenes. While this film was definitely a good escape for a couple of hours, you might want to question whether it is worth purchasing to see more than once.

Underrated thriller
Alec Baldwin comes on quoting from the Tao Te Ching, making me think he's my kind of anti hero. He's urban, sophisticated and seemingly very safe since he's an art curator, or seems to be. Demi Moore as Annie Laird, a gifted and original sculptor (she sculpts works of art that you feel with your hands by reaching up into them: it's all tactile), is thrilled when he offers to buy her work and sell it to the Japanese. Wow. She has arrived as an artist.

Thus we have an intriguing and original premise for a thriller. One almost wishes that there weren't this little matter of her agreeing to serve on the jury in the case of a Mafia boss on trial for murder..

I will gloss over the excellent, if unlikely, plot since it would be preemptive to reveal any of it, and concentrate on Demi Moore who is gorgeous, strange and riveting.

It might seem impossible to give an "heroic" performance in a thriller, since the point of a thriller is pure entertainment, but this movie manages to look into the nature of good and evil a bit more than most, and Moore plays her part like our dream of a true heroine. Her character has strength and cunning; she's sharp without pretension. I always thought Moore was better than her reputation, but somehow she always seemed a little on the not entirely bright side, the kind of actress who would never presume to play Shakespeare. But now I think she's a "natural," like a gifted athlete-I'd almost say an "animal"-as an actress, which is probably why some people don't like her. She can project the beautiful woman, an ordinary woman, or herself as a matronly woman with just a turn of her head. She can display a wide range of emotions and be, by turns, both a masculine and a feminine entity; but she is not androgynous. The role she plays here is, in a sense, the feminine counterpart of many Harrison Ford roles, the ordinary person elevated to heroic action by compelling circumstances. I would not say that Demi Moore is a great actress, but she is close, and I could be wrong.

Alec Baldwin combines megalomania with a seductive cynicism. He fills the screen with his presence like something you can't get rid of. He is so compelling you want to push him away or just give up. And he is charming-evil, but charming.

Brian Gibson's direction is unobtrusive and clever, and he pays attention to detail. The script is relatively free of the implausibilities that usually mar the genre, and the editing is crisp without jarring. The story practically transcends the genre by making us feel the evil of violent crime and how it perverts society, the sort of revelation not usually attempted in a thriller. I was especially delighted to see the Mafia demeaned and defeated, even if it's only by a new breed of international criminal. This is a superior thriller.

LADY JUSTICE TRICKED AGAIN
If you didn't read the novel by George Dawes Green upon which this movie is based, you missed a lot of extra stuff that may have helped with the seemingly implausible points of the plot. A whole subplot involving the Teacher's lover and a has-been PI stimulated a lot of what is overlooked in the film version. But I think overall director Brian Gibson did a commendable job in translating this to the screen.
Demi Moore gives one of her best performances as the trapped mother; she is strong, yet vulnerable; determined and wise. Alec Baldwin is good at playing sleazeballs, but he tempers this with a sense of sensitivity he rarely displays; Anne Heche in an early role does well in the role of Juliette, although in the book Juliette's character is more fleshed out; James Gandolfino in a pre-Sopranos role is outstanding as Baldwin's henchman, who ends up siding with Moore; and Tony Lo Bianco in a brief role as the mafia don, is perfect in his sleazy shell.
THE JUROR is a manipulative movie, but done with enough style and finesse, to be a very entertaining thriller.