Show our legends some bleeding respect. If you toil at the cinematic coalface for 60 years, make of yourself an icon, win four Oscars, become mayor of your hometown, inspire a Gorillaz hit, turn the poncho into a fashion must-have and debate a chair at the Republican National Convention then you surely deserve featherbedding in later years.
Even if Clint Eastwood’s 40th film as director were an utter dud – and he has made a few – you’d expect it to be launched with a bit of flash. Regular readers may, however, have noticed that, press-screened too late for print deadlines, the great man’s Juror #2 was not reviewed in the Irish Times. To be fair, you would have had little problem seeing it if you so desired. The Guardian reports that the film is showing at more than 300 cinemas in the UK and Ireland. All the mainstream sites within cycling distance of Clarke Towers offered the opportunity to catch Nicholas Hoult and Toni Collette, first partnered in About a Boy 22 year ago, reunited for a zesty courtroom drama.
The controversy has really taken off in the United States. “Juror No 2 could be Clint Eastwood’s last film – so why is Warner Bros burying it?” Variety yelled. Let us pause the outrage to optimistically parse the “could be” there. Actuarial reality tells that, yes, at 94, Eastwood is unlikely to have many more movies in him. But the guy has spent the past decade or so frustrating critics who too quickly brandish the word “valedictory”.
And the films have been fine. Cry Macho from 2021 had other attractions bar the amusing sight of the actor-director’s (of course) inappropriately young love interest – Natalia Traven has close to 40 years on Clint – turning out to be an actual grandmother. The Mule, from 2019, had moments of genuine tension. He says he is currently considering scripts, and I wouldn’t bet against him working up to his centenary year.
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Anyway, whether this is the last Clint or not, Juror #2, whatever its quality, surely deserved to play in more than 35 or so cinemas in the United States. Yet that is the number mentioned by the Hollywood Reporter. Bilge Ebiri of New York Magazine tells us that in France, where Eastwood is a beloved auteur, the picture is showing on 448 screens. If it landed soon enough for deadlines, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it make the 2024 top 10 of the cineaste bible Cahiers du Cinéma. After all, they have listed him on 13 previous occasions, most recently for The Mule. Only Jean-Luc Godard and Ingmar Bergman have appeared more often on that illustrious magazine’s end-of-year list.
And Juror #2 isn’t a dud. It’s a clever legal yarn that hangs around one of those priceless what-if pitches (one we won’t spoil) that used to propel talented screenwriters into bidding wars. The blunt-force ratings on the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregator place it, at time of writing, higher than admired Clint flicks such as Dirty Harry, Play Misty for Me and the Oscar best-picture winner Million Dollar Baby. “If this one proves, as rumors have it, that it’s his last as a director, he is going out with a bang,” Manohla Dargis writes in the New York Times.
So what’s going on with that American release? It seems Juror #2 was, with Eastwood’s early agreement, always intended for release on Max, Warner Bros’ US streaming service, and that the US theatrical outing is, as a favour to a long-time Warners collaborator, intended merely to qualify the title for Oscars.
Is that a realistic proposition? A few weeks ago Variety claimed the film was not listed on Warners’ For Your Consideration awards site. It’s there now, alongside the likes of Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and (ahem) Joker: Folie à Deux. Juror #2 is certainly an outsider for a best-picture nomination but with that buzz it probably has a better chance than any Warners title other than the dead-cert Dune: Part Two. It will be interesting to see if a campaign materialises.
The point worth noting here is how little interest studios now have in promoting what was once a stable of exhibition: the mid-budget mainstream drama. Not just that. They care little for romantic comedies, detective flicks, weepies and westerns. The screen economy is now structured around six or seven enormously budgeted pictures that, invariably, form part of a franchise. This Christmas the money will be thrown at Moana 2, Wicked (part one) and Mufasa: The Lion King. There will be fewer lower-temperature titles for those who once strolled down to the cinema to “see what’s on”. As I did on Wednesday. Juror #2 was on. And it was great.
Vive le Clint!
