One would never think of Clint Eastwood as a high concept director, but that's exactly what this movie is. It's also delivered in his trademark style – ie no style, just people dressed and speaking normally in everyday settings and locations, all of it telling its story with little subtext or theme and a minimum of fuss.

Nicholas Hoult is journalist Justin, a loving husband to cute and pregnant wife Ally (Zoey Deutch). When he's called to jury duty in a murder case, it's a terrible time for it. Ally's already had a dangerous miscarriage that makes the upcoming birth high risk, but she convinces him to go along and do his civic duty.

Justin's soon ensconced in the case and it looks open and shut. A party-loving pair have gone to a bar one night and argued, she's stormed off, he's followed her out into the rain and her body, bludgeoned to death, has been found in a ravine down the road the next day by a hiker.

But Justin soon fears there's more to it than he realises. The guy swears up and down that he's innocent, that he followed her in a rage but then left her to walk home alone. And Justin wonders if he's right. At the risk of giving away a spoiler, he has a history with alcohol and knows very well he was at the bar the night in question because of a secret he's struggling with that he can't possibly tell anyone.

He does confide in his sponsor, who's also a lawyer (Kiefer Sutherland), who warns Justin that, given his history, nobody would believe he was sober the night he left the bar, a state of being that would have disastrous consequences for both Justin and the case.

As he deliberates with the rest of the jurors – who all just want it over with quickly – Justin is torn between trying not to let on what he knows (and what he possibly did) and trying to keep an innocent man from going down for what happened that rainy night.

Like all Eastwood's films the script does most of the work. He might be one of the most purely textual filmmakers left in that he hardly seems interested in the visuals as long as the camera's pointed in the right direction when something important happens.

That's oversimplifying it and selling his talent as a director short, of course, but you can see from the result on screen why he has a reputation for expecting actors to show up prepared and only does one or two takes. Occasionally such a work style falls down badly (quick shout out to the woefully acted Gran Torino) but he's done a good job of casting here and everyone brings the script to life believably and ably.