Clint Eastwood’s courtroom drama is too good for a 50-theater run

It’s an injustice that duds like “Joker: Folie a Deux” and “Megalopolis” played on thousands of screens around the country while Clint Eastwood’s engrossing new film about justice, “Juror No. 2,” will only grace 50. 

The swell courtroom drama could very well be the 94-year-old “Million Dollar Baby” director’s swan song, though he hasn’t said as much. And why should the gunslinger jump the gun? The man still knows how to make a damn good movie.

How bizarre that most audiences will have to wait for the streaming debut to see Eastwood’s film. But “Juror No. 2” and its vanishing ilk scare studios today: Morally complex, smart fare that’s made for adults. What should frighten Hollywood execs is comic book villains who sing showtunes, but I digress.

Even during the movie’s sporadic moments of clunkiness, you’re always tense, you’re always thinking, you’re always filled with a realistic dread. You’re always wondering, “Could this happen to me?”

The conundrum we wrestle with is a tricky one. Nicholas Hoult, an underrated actor who’s one of his generation’s finest, plays Justin, a jury member who begins to believe that he committed the crime — not the defendant.

One year earlier a woman named Kendall (Francesca Eastwood, Clint’s 31-year-old daughter) was found dead at the bottom of an overpass, having been bludgeoned with a hard object and then pushed over the rail. That’s what they think, anyway.

The man on trial is her violent, tatted boyfriend, James (Gabriel Basso), who was witnessed arguing with her at a bar nearby. She stormed off down the street and he followed her.

But, as the details of the case are revealed, paranoid Justin recalls that he hit something with his car on the very same road late that night. He couldn’t find a body, and he hoped it was at most a deer. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.

Whatever the case, his terrible accident, the guilt and doubt that have wracked him since, and being tasked with deciding James’ fate — anything from 30 years to life in prison — is a person’s worst nightmare. 

Adding to the pressure, Justin’s pregnant wife Allison (Zoey Deutch, pitch perfect) is about to give birth twelve months after she suffered a traumatizing miscarriage. And, oh right, he is also a recovering alcoholic (his AA sponsor is played by Kiefer Sutherland). 

The film, which is visually unfussy, suffers some during the jury deliberations. The group starts off almost unanimously believing James is guilty and then, because of their slightly-too-specific backgrounds, begin to wobble on their certainty. 

The evidence presented by ambitious prosecutor Faith (Toni Collette) — who’s also running for District Attorney and has an on-the-nose first name — doesn’t add up for a former cop (J.K. Simmons), and a med student (Chikako Fukuyama) offers her own expert take on how the injuries actually occurred. 

These scenes, always entertaining, nonetheless strain credulity. The characters come to conclusions that are hard to believe real people would reach, and venture off in directions it’s impossible to fathom a sensible judge would condone.

Steady as she goes, though, even as his character’s life falls to pieces, is the telltale heart performance by Hoult. He is quiet, reserved and fidgety with a steely resolve and dazzlingly expressive eyes. The actor, more versatile than you’d think, never overplays a beat as the storm inside him rages. 

Part of what makes our debate about Justin so lively, is the easy kindness Hoult emanates. How could someone so innocent and good-natured get wrapped up in such a gruesome crime? And, if indeed he did do it, do we really want this sweet fellow who’s about to be a new dad to suffer the obvious consequences, or squeeze through the cracks of a beleaguered justice system?

“It’s a tough one,” says Collette’s Faith.

And so is “Juror No. 2” in all the right ways.

Thanks, Clint, for a long and brilliant career filled with tough ones.