Jury Duty (2008)

Genres - Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Courtroom Drama, Psychological Drama  |   Run Time - 88 min.  |   Countries - Belgium, France  |  
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Synopsis by Mark Deming

A man seems poised to get away with murder even as he tries to clear an innocent man in this drama from director Edouard Niermans. Grégoire Duval (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) is a druggist who runs a successful shop in the early 1960's. Duval is a well-respected citizen, but he has a dark side, and one night, when he propositions a young woman who rejects him, he flies into a rage and kills her. There are no witnesses to the crime and Duval tells no one about what happened. When the woman's body is found, Duval is not suspected, and instead Khader (Lahcen Razogir), the woman's Algerian boyfriend, is arrested and charged with the crime. With the Algerian war a fresh and unpleasant memory in the minds of most French citizens, Khader seems like a likely culprit, and circumstantial evidence is quickly stacked against him. Duval's conscience begins to get the better of him, and he begins visiting the courtroom during the trial, pointing out the flaws in the prosecutors' case. However, Duval realizes that his neighbors are so eager to believe that Khader is a murderer that there may be no saving him. Le Septieme Jure (aka Jury Duty) received its North American premiere at the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival.

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Keywords

boyfriend, murder, pharmacist, trial [courtroom]