Don't listen to the negative reviews

Beautiful, moving film.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Annie Laird (Demi Moore) is a sculptress and single mother to Oliver (Gordon-Levitt) who essentially talks her way onto the jury of a major Mafia trial. That leads to her being targeted and manipulated by a hit-man(Baldwin) who demands that Annie produce a not guilty verdict……Baldwin and Moore trying their best, and are compelling to a point, it all eventually unravels due to over-length and implausibility of the characters, whose actions over the course of the film are increasingly unlikely.This film is a great demonstration of Demi Moore's lacking of facial expression. She's a capable performer, but she lacks the ability to project either vulnerability or likability. Moore fails at playing the victim. Moore is played away by Heche (one with great facial expressions). Heche in the leading role And Moore in the role of best friend, could have raised this movie up from being slightly better than average into an exciting thriller. This is a pretty good movie up until the ending, that goes way over-the-top.

Overall an engaging drama for those with interests in legal plots. But script has taken liberties with reality and the ease with which houses are bugged, reservation systems are hacked, explosives are planned, makes the genre more like a spy thriller but the attempt is not very successful at that. The plot could have had a better focus on the legal drama. Character of Teacher has been portrayed larger than life perhaps for cinematic effects but it has a trivializing effect on the story line. The Jury room conversations were interesting but wish there was more of it as the audience for the movie (as drawn in by the movie title) would likely have more expectations of that.

Alec Baldwin's character talks so much and is so self-righteous that I wanted one of the other characters to yell "Shut up already!". It's hard to think of a more annoying character in movies. James Gandolfini is good, Anne Heche is also enjoyable, and Demi Moore is okay. Baldwin just seems way too impressed with himself and his monologues for this movie to be successful in any way. The story itself has interesting possibilities, but they're overwhelmed by the unconvincing Baldwin character and the submissive way the other characters react to him. One of those movies that I was glad to see end. Very unpleasant movie with an annoying, self-impressed main character.

It's crazy, basically we have a decent genre plot here and some more than capable actors to play the roles but the movie makes some wrong choices, that often turn this movie into a silly one and therefore also a quite bad one.Not that the movie was very original to begin with but at least it showed some potential with its story. It's the sort of concept that should turn the movie in a decent thriller to watch. For its first halve or so it also is a quite watchable movie but then some of the twists and turns start to kick in. The movie could had gone into many different ways with its story but yet it picks the least likely ones and for some odd reason the movie toward the end becomes more of an action flick than a thriller really. The characters were being all still quite credible in the first halve but in the second halve we see them all doing things that completely ruins some of the credibility they had build up in the first halve.Further more it's pretty much a movie by the number, without any real surprises in it, despite of the twists and turns the movie is taking. It's one of those '90's thrillers that try to look more clever than they in fact really are. On top of that '90's movies all tend to have the same visual look and feeling to it, which just isn't the most compelling thing. In terms of style the '90's was one of the worst, if not the worst, decade for movies. Like a lot of thrillers from those days the movie has a pretty solid cast, with some well known names in it, like Demi Moore, Alec Baldwin, Anne Heche and James Gandolfini. Also child-actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a quite popular grown up actor these days, with his most recent roles in movies such as "(500) Days of Summer" and "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra".Not really a great thriller that is worth watching but also far from the worst that you'll ever see.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/