Runaway Jury

It won’t make gun lobbyists happy and certainly has traces of liberal hokum, but this bracing courtroom thriller is the most entertaining and satisfying John Grisham adaptation I’ve seen. A young widow in New Orleans brings a civil suit against a gun manufacturer after her husband perishes in an indiscriminate massacre, and an old-fashioned local lawyer (Dustin Hoffman) takes the case while a slick corporate hit man (Gene Hackman) flies in to set up a high-tech command center that monitors and manipulates the ongoing trial. Meanwhile, one of the jurors (John Cusack) and a mysterious woman (Rachel Weisz) with resources of their own conspire to sell the verdict to the highest bidder. Director Gary Fleder and four screenwriters make an extremely complicated plot easy to follow and absorbing to watch. Burnham Plaza, Century 12 and CineArts 6, Chatham 14, City North 14, Crown Village 18, Davis, Ford City, Gardens 1-6, Golf Glen, Lake, Lawndale, Lincoln Village, Norridge, 600 N. Michigan, 62nd & Western, Village.

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