JUROR #2. Nicholas Hoult, Zoey Deutch, Megan Mieduch, Toni Collette, J. K. Simmons, Kiefer Sutherland. Director: Clint Eastwood.

   Juror #2 starts with a premise and then runs with it to the very end. Magazine writer and recovering alcoholic Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is called for jury duty in Savannah, Georgia. It doesn’t take him long, however, to realize that the defendant, former drug dealer James Michael Sythe (Gabriel Basso), is most certainly innocent, and that he himself was the accidental perpetrator of the crime in question.

   The state’s official version of events is that Sythe, after a public fight with his girlfriend (Francesca Eastwood), followed her down a dark, rainy two lane highway, bashed her head in, and dumped her in a ditch. What the state doesn’t know is that Kemp, juror number two, accidentally killed the victim that same night, thinking that he had hit a deer with his vehicle.

   That’s the set-up. What follows for the next ninety minutes or so is a taut courtroom drama and thriller that doesn’t waste a minute of your time. The viewer gets to witness not only the jury deliberations, with Kemp trying to bend the jury to his will, but also the contest between an ambitious prosecutor (Toni Collette) and the overworked public defender (Chris Messina), tasked with a thankless job.

   Filling out the cast are J.K. Simmons as a juror who turns out to be a retired police detective from the Midwest who has doubts about the case, Kiefer Sutherland as a lawyer who is also Kemp’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, and Zoey Deutch as Kemp’s pregnant wife who wants to believe that her husband is a good man. All three are excellent in their roles. One only wishes Simmons had a more prominent role. His character simply disappears after a while.

   Overall, a solid, comparatively apolitical work by director Clint Eastwood that doesn’t remotely dumb things down for a mass audience. It’s a mature, sophisticated film that is able to both appeal to both one’s emotions and intellect without being pretentious or preachy. It’s not flashy and there’s not a lot of action, but it’s worth your time.