Lawyer, Wendell Rohr’s, pleased to have a gun company ex-executive willing to testify against his former employer. Rohr represents the widow of a man shot by a Vicksburg Firearms gun. The notorious Rankin Fitch is Vicksburg’s lead jury consultant.
Jury consultant, Lawrence Green, says Fitch’s team will be scientifically picking jurors predisposed on his favour by using surveillance, wiretaps, psych profiles and graphology. Green has a Masters in Psychology and believes in a world without guns. Rohr says Green’s hired.
Fitch walks into the courtroom with Amanda Monroe asking her if she can smell that. Monroe says two hundred year old mahogany. Fitch says furniture polish, cheap cologne and body odour.
Judge Harkin says Celeste Wood claims Vicksburg Firearms is liable for her husband’s death and seeks damages for loss of future earnings as well as general damages, including pain and suffering.
Rohr and Fitch’s employee, Durwood Cable, decide which jurors they want. Nicholas Easter looks repeatedly at his watch. Harkin asks if they’re keeping him. Easter says it’s the annual Madden Football video game challenge. The prize is $100,000.
Rohr has no objections to Easter. Cable asks Fitch in his earpiece. Harkin hurries him. Cable should take Easter. Harkin says enter Easter as a juror. Fitch wants his team to examine the lives of every juror.
Two years earlier, Celeste Wood’s stockbroker husband, Jacob was gunned down in a suicide shooting where he worked. Rohr says reckless, profit-hungry gun companies like Vicksburg have been getting away with murder for too long.
At Nick’s request, everybody votes for visually-impaired Herman Grimes to be foreman. For lunch, the jurors should circle what they want from a menu. Nick throws crumpled paper out the window, which is quickly collected.
Rohr says, in October, two years ago at 8:45am on a Monday morning, Kevin Peltier walks into the brokerage house from which he was fired the previous Friday morning. He opens fire on his former co-workers, killing eleven, critically-wounding five and killing himself.
Dobbs and Rohr are both handed identical cards saying “Jury For Sale”. On the back, it says “a hint: this jury can’t be bought for $16 a day and a brown bag lunch”. Marlee calls the restaurant saying Judge Harkin would like the jury’s lunch order held till after two.
By one thirty, the jury’s hungry. Nick watches Stella Hullic hiding her bourbon. He goes to the restaurant where Judge Harkin’s eating, mid-anecdote, with friends. Nick says no-one ordered their lunch. Harkin ends up buying the whole jury lunch.
Rohr dismisses the “Jury For Sale” card as a defence tactic. Fitch’s assistant, Monroe, however, analyses the card’s syntax, handwriting, word choice. She deduces it was probably written by a woman. On the phone, Marlee greets Fitch. Lamb says she’s calling from a payphone fifteen miles away. She tells Fitch and Rohr she hopes they’re feeling patriotic.
Nick says his friend Donny Rabbs was shot down in Kuwait twelve years ago to the day. If he doesn’t remember him that day, nobody will. Rikki Coleman and others sympathise. In court, instead of sitting, the jury gives the pledge of allegiance. When the judge joins in, those assembled do, too.
Excalibur Guns is an outlet for Vicksburg Firearms. Rohr asks storeowner Murphy about his arrangement with Michael Kincaid, who illegally sold the fateful Performa 990 semi-automatic to Kevin Peltier.
Murphy says Kincaid bought one hundred and twelve semi-automatic assault weapons over four months. Vicksburg Firearms then sent Murphy and his wife on vacation to Cancun.
Doyle’s ransacking Nick’s apartment, but Nick gets home. Doyle distracts him and runs. Nick’s videoed the break-in. As punishment, Marlee tells Fitch she’s bumping one of his jurors.
Nick and Stella are caught with alcohol. Nick gallantly claims it’s his. Harkin asks if Nick’s still trying to get off his jury. He doesn’t think that’s Nick’s lipstick on the bottle. Stella’s replaced.
Marlee threatens to lose Fitch another juror. Fitch now wants to find and contain Marlee. He angrily wants damning details for every juror. Monroe discovers Rikki Coleman broke it off with boyfriend Neil Pollard two months after her abortion. Her Baptist minister husband, Mr Coleman, wasn’t with her at the clinic. Fitch’s man informs Coleman they know. Coleman’s petrified.
Strode then tells Weese they know he’s secretly HIV. At a staged meeting, the FBI places Millie Dupree’s husband of eighteen years under arrest for attempting to bribe a government official.
Rohr learns Murphy never questioned why Kincaid would need so many guns. Cable asks if Vicksburg Firearms was aware Kincaid was out there reselling their product. Kincaid says no. Rohr says Kincaid flipped on them.
Lamb deduces Nick’s mp3 player holds all the powerful intel. Fitch sends Doyle back in to get it, with Janovich. Soon, they find the mp3 player and set fire to the flat.
Coleman attempts suicide. Easter gets home to find the fire brigade there and his mp3 player missing. Harkin receives the video from Nick’s camera and the jury is sequestered.
Green tells Rohr Easter’s spinning the jury. Green knows it was Fitch’s men who ransacked Nick’s place. He thinks Fitch hasn’t told the judge about Easter because they’re serious about buying the verdict.
Thanks to Easter’s mp3 player, Fitch realises Nick’s been stalking gun cases. Fitch wants the jury files on Boston, Pittsburgh, Brooklyn and Cincinnati immediately. Marlee wants to meet Fitch in fifteen minutes.
Marlee tells Fitch $10m, non-negotiable, ignoring his cheque for $500,000. Marlee knows Fitch can’t lean on all the jurors. If he loses the case, every civil lawyer in the country’s gonna have their hand out.
Monroe learns Easter also uses the name David Lancaster. Fitch wants Doyle on the first flight to Cincinnati to see if Lancaster left behind any loose ends.
Rohr can’t locate his whistle-blower. Rohr angrily accuses Fitch of messing with his witness, his client, his case and the rules of law that govern the country.
Rohr asks if Fitch is protecting the Constitution. Fitch says he was hired to win, everything else is coloured bubbles. But, if Rohr’s relying on testimony to win the case, then he’s already lost. Rohr says Fitch’s contempt will become malignant. Fitch insults Rohr’s suit, laughs and walks away.
In Cincinnati, Doyle reads on a letter: “Jeff Kerr, care of David Lancaster” and “Professor Frank Phelan at Bloomington University,” noticing Jeffrey Kerr’s file with a photo of Easter.
Rohr asks Jankle to read the ad copy used to sell the Performa 990. “Also available in a print-resistant finish”. Rohr asks who might be eager to purchase a dangerous weapon in a “fingerprint-resistant finish”. Rohr says Jankle knows criminals favour the gun, yet thinks it’s not his problem. Jankle finally shouts that he stands on the Second Amendment.
Fitch tells Marlee he’s ready to meet her terms. He tells Easter he can have ten million wire-transferred to the Caymans, subject to verification.
Marlee calls Fitch to say the price is now fifteen million — as a punishment for Janovich attacking her. She hangs up, letting Fitch attack the receiver.
Professor Phelan tells Doyle about his once-idealistic law student Jeff Kerr. Doyle then learns about Kerr’s girlfriend Gabriel Brandt from Gardner, Indiana.
Fitch calls Doyle again saying there could be a verdict any second. Doyle’s talking to Mrs Brandt. Fitch wires the money to Marlee. Nick reads “money in” on his pager.
In Gardner, Mrs Brandt explains how her daughter, Margaret, was slain in a school shooting where nine people died. Margaret was with Jeff, Gabby’s boyfriend. Jeff said Margaret froze. He couldn’t reach her to pull her down.
Frank Herrera doesn’t care if the gun company gave Peltier an M-16 with his morning donut. He’s not giving them a cent. The jury deliberates.
Marlee reports a robbery in progress at Mardi Gras Costumes, 6510 Charter Street, fully aware that it’s Fitch’s control room.
Doyle urges Fitch not to wire the money. He’s in Gardner, Indiana. He says it’s a setup.
Police arrive at Mardi Gras Costumes. Inside, Lamb urgently says it’s a Code Four. Somebody asks what happened in Gardner. Lamb says 1989, Gardner vs Blackwell Arms. The town sued the gun manufacturer, lost, and went bankrupt. Fitch worked the case.
Harkin says in the matter of Celeste Wood vs Vicksburg Firearms the jury finds for the plaintiff, Celeste Wood. They award special damages in the amount of $1m and general damages in the amount of $110m.
Nick and Marlee meet Fitch in a bar and say if Fitch shows up on any other case, the IRS, the Justice Department and the Federal Board of Judicial Review will learn of the $15m bank transfer.
Nick says Gardner, Indiana. Fitch remembers and laughs. Nick and Marlee tell him the victims’ families are getting the money. Fitch asks how Nick won. Nick says he stopped Fitch from stealing it and let them vote their hearts.
Starring John Cusack. Rachel Weisz. Gene Hackman. Rated 12A. Dir Gary Fleder. Released in the UK 2003. Runtime 2hrs 7mins
