The Juror

Sculptress and single mom Annie (Moore) is thrilled to be selected for jury duty on a big Mafia trial, and even happier when an attractive art dealer (Baldwin) picks up on her work and asks her out. He's too good to be true, she tells her best friend (Heche) - and so it transpires, when he whispers these sweet nothings on the first date: if Annie doesn't swing the jury to an acquittal, then she's art history. This pappy, semi-enjoyable legal thriller (from a book by George Dawes Green) raises a number of questions, the most intriguing of which must be: is this woman the most exciting screen actress in America? No, no - not Ms Moore, though she's hit on what must be her perfect movie vocation, making sculptures you can't see (they come boxed). She's very up in the early scenes, very down thereafter, and perfectly watchable throughout, but it's still a stretch watching her persuade 11 angry jurors that black is white and 'the big spaghetti-o' should walk. No, Anne Heche is the one to look for. In just a handful of perfunctory scenes, this mercurial newcomer blows the stars off the screen and the film rings momentarily true. For the rest, screenwriter Ted Tally appears to be aiming for a low-brow companion piece to his Before and After, Baldwin contributes a silky, Zen hood ('If I can keep you scared, I can save you'), but director Gibson shows real bad faith by resorting to a laughably primitive climax in Guatemala, of all places.