ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Solidrariol Am I Missing Something?

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

pawebster This should be a textbook example of an ensemble production. Everybody is excellent, and some of them are big names, too, such as Derek Jacobi, Anthony Sher, and (though not so famous at the time) Gerard Butler, who puts in a memorable performance as a recovering alcoholic. It also maintains its momentum over six episodes, and I was always keen to see the next one.The plot has some weaknesses. The judge seems never to have explained clearly to the jury that you have to find a defendant not guilty if there is not sufficient proof of guilt. There are also inexplicable weaknesses in the evidence, such as absolutely no traces of blood on the defendant. If not, why not? What about DNA? I know this was in the early 2000s, but I would have thought it might have been mentioned. And why was there no clear medical evidence about the boy's shoulder? As for the drain, is it credible that the police, however complacent, would not have searched such an obvious location close to the canal? Also, as another reviewer has mentioned, why did the jury continually have to run the gauntlet of protesters outside the main door of the Old Bailey? Despite these glaring defects, the acting and the quality of the direction make this well worth seeing.

kagreenizen I am a self-professed Law&Order/police and law procedural junkie. I am also a BBC-ophile; and though I confess to having found out about this miniseries because I looked up Gerard Butler's profile, I recognized many, many of the actors from years of watching Brit cinema and television.I would have watched it because of the subject matter. I would happily have watched it because of the magnificent cast. Either reason is enough, but the brilliance and realism of the writing drew me right into the experience as well. I found myself having conversations with the screen during key scenes with several characters.Derek Jacobi is mesmerizing as the defense QC; Mark Maloney as the jury foreman and Nicholas Farrell as the juror who lost everything playing the market were very effecting; I think, though, that for sheer emotional power that this is Gerard Butler's finest performance to date. I have seen many of his other roles and he's very fine, but this role shows more dimension and emotive depth than his usual hero/warriors. Mark Strong and Helen McRory are also splendid as a married couple with problems. I could continue with praise for the entire cast, I didn't see a poor or superfluous performance among them.I have tried strenuously to avoid spoilers.... I just hate that need to ruin it for the next person! If you love good writing and acting, this is worth the trouble to track it down.

indigo01 I set out to watch this 6 hour British mini series for one reason: I'm a huge fan of Gerard Butler's. I came away amazed at how really good I thought it was. The mini-series deals with the trial of a Sikh student accused of brutally killing a fellow student (and compelling evidence both for and against). And while it does indeed explore the trial itself, the beauty of this series is the exploration of the jurors and their lives (something rarely done). It takes 7 of the 12 jurors and shows what is going on in their lives (and by proxy, what their lives the last several years must have been like). You have the alcoholic just out of rehab the first morning of the trial (Butler), the single mother with her own "mom" issues, the seminary student torn between his love of God and his love of a woman, the old Catholic woman who is clearly lonely, the man who had lost his fortune a while back and is no longer financially well-off, the woman who is controlled by her ex-military and semi-crippled husband and last the responsible citizen who is pleased and overwhelmed at the duty placed on him (and who has the most clueless in-laws). You have the not-so-nice prosecutor (played admirably by Antony Sher) and the decent defense barrister (played well as always by Derek Jacobi). Almost all the characters are to some degree stereotypes, but it is how the actors portray them and the way they are written--the way these stories unfold--that is so special. These performances are just truly wonderful (notably Butler and the actors portraying the abused wife, the single mom and the duty bound juror) The ultimate outcome of the trial, while important, takes second place to the jurors' outcome and the central question: how difficult is it to reach a decision on guilt or innocence when you can NEVER really know?

Piafredux Despite its fine acting 'The Jury' is just one more program/script driven by the twin Leftist (or Marxisant) orthodoxies of its time: political correctness and so-called "multiculturalism." In this film all the women and non-whites struggle valiantly, and all of them are depicted either as victims of "Eurocentric" white male culture, or as struggling valiantly to overcome their troubles (which, of course, devolve from their having been victimized by white men); and, conversely, all the white men (with the exception of the sensitive one who's working through his priestly vocation or lack thereof) are shown as neurotic, self-absorbed, inept (owing to their inability to see beyond their "whiteness" and maleness and the horrible, oppressive cultures flowing from those two characteristics) muddlers too insensible or witless to see their "issues," let alone to deal decisively or positively with them. Even the recovering alcoholic sod has to pay for the sins of his alcoholism which is, after all - as the Foucaults and gender feminists of the world tell us, a male affliction since men first concocted firewater and they're the ones who swill it and then abuse women while they're under its evil influence. The baleful mother-in-law archetype is absent herein, replaced by the male Jewish juror's veddy British, old school tie, overbearing father-in-law with whose prejudice, inveigling and meddling the muddled juror, of course - according to the PC/Leftist/feminist orthodoxy, cannot deal (his wife, of course, gets it right from the start and never wavers, pillar of feminist strength that she is).The other men in the film are the father of the murdered schoolboy and his thuggish, vengeful male relatives - the lot of them, of course since they're men, being shown to be prejudiced, vindictive, reptilian, and contemptible. And then there are the lawyers, who are mere mouthpieces for orthodox inflammatory buzzwords, gaffes, and provocations: the sort of innuendo and screed which nowadays monotonously accompany wife-abuse and sexual harassment accusations which, quite often without a case's ever going to court, are often sufficient in themselves to ruin men's reputations and careers.In sum: spare me, and the world, 'The Jury's' "postmodern" orthodox sort of preachiness. If I want to see and hear - and endure - this kind of Leftist re-education camp lecturing I can tune into BBC World - at least there, because the anchors and reporters haven't a script or the device of acting to hide behind, I can see the sneers on their permanently upturned lips.