#356: Jury Duty

Release Date: April 14th, 1995

Format: Streaming (Tubi)

Written by: Samantha Adams, Neil Tolkin, and Barbara Williams

Directed by: John Fortenberry

1.5 Stars

Jury Duty is a formulaic, fish-out-of-water starring vehicle for Pauly Shore, one of the most irritating and unfunny movie stars…ever. 

I’m not a fan. 

Here he is once again playing his comedic persona “The Weasel,” an obnoxious SoCal man-child who’s heavy on schtick and light on jokes. In Jury Duty, The Weasel finagles his way into prolonged jury duty so he can soak up a free hotel stay and some meal per diems. 

The way these Pauly Shore movies work is that he spends 90% of the film annoying all of the other on-screen characters (and me) before heroically saving the day in the film’s final scene and scoring a hot babe in the process. Jury Duty is no different. 

What Jury Duty does have going for it is a cute little dog named Peanut, some great filming locations around Los Angeles and Long Beach circa 1995, and a cavalcade of fun ‘90s character actors: Stanley Tucci, Tia Carrere, Brian Doyle-Murray, Abe Vigoda, Charles Napier, Richard Edson, Richard Riehle, Richard T. Jones, Jack McGee, Nick Bakay, Shelley Winters, Sean Whalen, Andrew Dice Clay, Rick Ducommun, and Siobhan Fallon Hogan. You might not know all of these names, but as you’re watching Jury Duty (if you’re anything like me), you’ll be constantly grabbing your phone to Google just where you’ve seen these faces before.

It’s a good way to distract you from this dumb, dumb movie.