"The Juror" is one of the funniest comedies to hit theaters in some time, with a great many more laughs than, say, the lamentable "Black Sheep" (reviewed elsewhere in this section).
Sadly, however, "The Juror" doesn't mean to be a comedy. Yet, as the film progresses — if that's the word — the plotting and dialogue become so supremely ludicrous that laughing out loud is the only relief.
Let's face it, any jury duty tale that begins in a New York courtroom and ends in a Mayan temple in Guatamala is bound to have camp value.
The tampering-with-the-jury sub-genre of the traditional courtroom picture is a fairly frequent staple at movie houses these days, the most recent big-screen example being "Trial By Jury," with Joanne Whalley-Kilmer as a single mother forced by hit man William Hurt to vote "not guilty" for the mob boss on trial.
In "The Juror," Demi Moore is a single mother threatened by hit man Alec Baldwin. But casting an "innocent" vote for this mob boss (Tony Lo Bianco) on trial isn't enough. She must also convince the entire jury to free him, or else her son dies, her best friend dies — and maybe she dies.
Watching Moore, who supposedly never reads newspapers or keeps up with current events, manipulate the other jurors is just one of the film's laughable pleasures.
Meanwhile, Baldwin is such a deluded psycho that he becomes infatuated with Moore — and even thinks Moore is in love with him. He's not about to let her go when the trial is over. In fact, at one point he offers Moore some parenting advice: "I think you're being a little harsh with your child." And toward the end of the film, he explains to her that with all the threats, violence and general mayhem they've experienced together, "Everything we've been through is like a marriage."
Well, maybe a Hollywood marriage.
Moore is an artist, a self-described sculptor who makes what she calls "boxes," wooden crates with unseen material inside. Patrons reach under the box and "feel" the art. Right.
When he initially contrives to meet her, Baldwin pretends to be a high-rolling art dealer who wants to buy some of her work. That should have been her first tip that he's nuts.
That same night, on their first date, he reveals his truer motives, and later in the evening, we see him carving a marionette. Huh?
And just to add to his mysteriousness, we learn that Baldwin goes by the pseudonym "The Teacher," because, as a mobster explains in the witness box, "When you see him — school's out!"
Moore and Baldwin are over the top and zany, but there is some enjoyment to be had from a couple of supporting performances. Anne Heche, who starred in two of the Sundance Film Festival's more charming efforts, "Pie in the Sky" and "Walking and Talking," lends some spark in a typically thankless "best-friend" role. And some emotional weight comes from James Gandolfini, as a soft-hearted mobster who shadows Baldwin and feels sympathy for Moore. (Of course, with this film directly following "The Scarlet Letter," all of Hollywood will be feeling sympathy for Moore.)
But Lo Bianco, Lindsay Crouse as the prosecutor and Michael Constantine as the judge are wasted.
And so is your time if you bother with this one.
"The Juror" is rated R for violence, gore, sex, nudity, profanity, vulgarity and drugs.