Corporate Line: Set in New Orleans, this is the story of a mysterious man, Nick Easter (Cusack) who gets himself on the jury of a landmark case against a gun manufacturer in an attempt to influence the other jury members to vote a certain way. Meanwhile, Easter’s girlfriend, Marlee (Weisz), tries to swindle the attorneys (Hackman, Hoffman) to pay millions of dollars to have the jury return a verdict friendly to their clients. The case involves the widow of a man killed in an office shooting suing the gun manufacturer of the weapon that was used, under the claim that they knew the store that sold it was not obeying the laws about firearm sales.
The Good: Wow, what a cast; Hoffman, Cusack, Hackman and others. This is a movie for conspiracy theorists and those who like to stick it to the man. If you aren’t a big fan of these kinds of films than I guess you could stick this into the bad column. I’m not the biggest fan in the world of this sort of movie except with the big three actors there is no denying how good they are and how much better they make this film.
The Bad: The film rides the fence the entire time between the probable and the improbable and it didn’t have to. Sure it makes us want to think about what could be happening at courthouses and get us more paranoid.
Another problem I had was Hackman’s sidekick and Cusack’s girlfriend look a lot alike. For a while I was confused as to what was happening until I figured out how to separate them. That was something they could have cleared up for the audience.
This film carries an agenda. You could say they have a problem with the legal system and what could be seen as behind the scene antics and a stand against gun manufactures. Personally I take no moral ground on either, but it might pile high on many viewers.
Frankly: Fantastic actors + improbably plot = a wash.
+ Charlie Craine
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